light slumber, when the fresh noise outside began.

There were the imitations of the crowing of cocks, and braying of
donkeys, and the sound of horns, encored and increased by the
cheers of the boys. Then began the torpedoes, and the Antiques
and Horribles had Chinese crackers also.

And, in despair of sleep, the family came down to breakfast.

Mrs. Peterkin had always been much afraid of fire-works, and had
never allowed the boys to bring gunpowder into the house. She
was even afraid of torpedoes; they looked so much like
sugar-plums she was sure some the children would swallow them,
and explode before anybody knew it.

She was very timid about other things. She was not sure even
about pea-nuts.

Everybody exclaimed over this: "Surely there was no danger in
pea-nuts!" But Mrs. Peterkin declared she had been very much
alarmed at the Centennial Exhibition, and in the crowded corners
of the streets in Boston, at the pea-nut stands, where they had
machines to roast the pea-nuts. She did not think it was safe. They
might go off any time, in the midst of a crowd of people, too!

Mr. Peterkin thought there actually was no danger, and he should
be sorry to give up the pea-nut. He thought it an American
institution, something really belonging to the Fourth of July. He
even confessed to a quiet pleasure in crushing the empty shells
with his feet on the sidewalks as he went along the streets.