on the Fourth of July is sure of a national celebration of his birthday.
And to Captain Baker and his wife, no celebration, however widespread,
could do justice to the importance of the occasion. When, to answer the
heart longings of the child-loving couple married many years, the baby
came, he was accepted as a special dispensation of Providence and valued
accordingly.

"He's got a real nice voice, Hiram," said Sophronia, gazing proudly
at the prodigy, who, clutched gingerly in his father's big hands, was
screaming his little red face black. "I shouldn't wonder if he grew up
to sing in the choir."

"That's the kind of voice to make a fo'mast hand step lively!" declared
Hiram. "You'll see this boy on the quarter deck of a clipper one of
these days."

Naming him was a portentous proceeding and one not to be lightly gone
about. Sophronia, who was a Methodist by descent and early confirmation,
was of the opinion that the child should have a Bible name.

The Captain respected his wife's wishes, but put in an ardent plea for
his own name, Hiram.

"There's been a Hiram Baker in our family ever since Noah h'isted
the main-r'yal on the ark," he declared. "I'd kinder like to keep the
procession a-goin'."

They compromised by agreeing to make the baby's Christian name Hiram and
to add a middle name selected at random from the Scriptures. The big,
rickety family Bible was taken from the center table and opened with
shaking fingers by Mrs. Baker. She read aloud the first sentence that
met her eye: "The son of Joash."

"Joash!" sneered her husband. "You ain't goin' to cruelize him with that
name, be you?"

"Hiram Baker, do you dare to fly in the face of Scriptur'?"

"All right! Have it your own way. Go to sleep now, Hiram Joash, while I
sing 'Storm along, John,' to you."

Little Hiram Joash punched the minister's face with his fat fist when he
was christened, to the great scandal of his mother and the ill-concealed
delight of his father.

"Can't blame the child none," declared the Captain. "I'd punch anybody
that christened a middle name like that onto me."

But, in spite of his name, the baby grew and prospered. He fell out of
his crib, of course, the moment that he was able, and barked his shins
over the big shells by the what-not in the parlor the first time that
he essayed to creep. He teethed with more or less tribulation, and once
upset the household by an attack of the croup.

They gave up calling him by his