Then began Sammy’s trial.  He never had a moment to play.  Other boys could go skating on Saturday, but he had to stay around the church, and dust and sweep, and put the cushions down in the pews, and see that the old stoves were all right, as to dampers and draughts, bring coal up from the cellar, have wood split, lamps filled, wicks cut, chimneys polished.  The big bell was hard to ring, hard for a fourteen-year-old boy.  At first, for the fun of it, some of the other boys helped him pull the rope, but their enthusiasm soon cooled.  Day in, day out, the stocky, sturdy form of Samuel might be seen, manfully plodding through all varieties of weather, and he had a good-morning or a good-evening ready for all he met.  When he learned his lessons was a puzzle, but learn them he did, and nobody could complain that in anything he fell off, though his face did sometimes wear a preoccupied look, and his mother said that at night he slept like the dead and she just hated to have to call him in the morning.  Through December and January and February and March, Sammy made as good a sexton as the church had ever had, and by April, Mr. Anderson was well again.

The queer thing about it all was that Sammy had forgotten the prize for valor altogether.  Nothing was said about it in school, and most of the boys were so busy looking out for brave deeds to come their way, that if one had appeared, they would not have recognized it.  In fact, everybody thought the prize for valor was going by the board.

Till July came.  And then, when the visitors were there, and the prizes were all given out, the President looked keenly through his spectacles and said: 

“Will Master Samuel Slocum step forward to the platform?”

Modestly blushing, up rose Sammy, and somewhat awkwardly he made his way to the front.

“Last winter,” said the President, “there was a boy who not only did his whole duty in our midst, but denied himself for another, undertook hard work for many weeks, without pay and without shirking.  We all know his name.  Here he stands.  To Samuel Slocum the committee award the prize for valor.”

He put five shining ten-dollar pieces into Sammy’s hard brown hand.

    The Glorious Fourth.

    Hurrah for the Fourth, the glorious Fourth,
      The day we all love best,
    When East and West and South and North,
      No boy takes breath or rest. 
    When the banners float and the bugles blow,
      And drums are on the street,
    Throbbing and thrilling, and fifes are shrilling,
      And there’s tread of marching feet.

    Hurrah for the nation’s proudest day,
      The day that made us free! 
    Let our cheers ring out in a jubilant shout
      Far over land and sea. 
    Hurrah for the flag on the school-house roof,
      Hurrah for the white church spire! 
    For the homes we love, and the tools we wield,
      And the light of the household fire.