Explore "The Believing Years" by Edmund Lester Pearson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
From far off came a sound of popping and snapping, -- some boy, unable to wait, was trying a few fire-crackers. It still lacked a day or two of the Fourth of July, and the strain was telling on us.
A door that was slammed or a whip that was cracked took on a new significance, while the fish-pedlers' horns seemed to have an altogether unusual note.