ker you are, why, the sooner you begin. It's the Fourth of July
the minute the clock strikes twelve--and, cracky, won't we make a racket
then? Henry Burns, he's got a cannon; and so's Jack Harvey and Tom
Harris and Bob White, and the Warren fellers they've got three, and a
lot of other fellers have got 'em. Just you wait till the clock strikes,
and there'll be some fun."

"I wish I could come out," said the boy, earnestly.

"Too bad you can't. You miss all the fun," said Little Tim. "I'll bet
George Washington was out the first of any of 'em on the Fourth of July,
when he was a boy."

Tim's knowledge of history was not quite so ample as his patriotic
ardour.

"Why don't you come, anyway?" he ventured. "Just tie a string around
your big toe, and hang the string out the window, and I'll come around
and wake you up. I'm going to wake George Baker that way. I don't go to
bed at all the night before the Fourth."

The boy shook his head.

"No, I guess not," he replied. "But say," he added quickly, "come around
in front of the house and make all the racket you can, will you? I'd
like to hear it, if I can't get out."

"You bet we will," responded Tim, heartily. "Sammy Willis, his father
won't let him come out, and we're going 'round there; and Joe Turner,
his father won't let him come out, and we're going there, too. There's
where we go to, most."

Tim did not explain whether this was from patriotic motives or
otherwise. But the small boy looked pleased.

"Be sure and come around," he said.

"Oh, you'll hear from us, all right," replied Tim.

It was quite evident that something would be heard when, some hours
later, about a quarter of an hour before midnight, a group of boys had
gathered in the square in front of Willie Perkins's house. There was an
array of small cannon ranged about that would have sent joy to the heart
of a youthful Knox or Steuben. The boys were engaged in the act of
loading these with blasting powder, purchased at a reduced price from
the rock blasters in the valley below.

"Here you, don't put in so much powder, young fellow," cautioned Harvey
to a smaller youth, who was about to pour a handful into a chunky
firearm. "Don't you know that it's little powder and lots of wadding
that makes her speak? I'll show you."

Harvey measured out a small handful of the coarse, black grains, poured
them down the barrel, stuffed in some newspaper and rammed it home with
a hickory stick. Then he stuffed i