gain like a huge fountain. If it had worked
as I expected everything would have been all right, but it didn't. I
had too much powder, for a second after I had lit the fuse there came
a muffled roar and the whole pond in a solid mass, fish and all, went
flying up into the air and disappeared. Everybody was astonished, not
a few were very much frightened. I was scared to death but I never let
on to any one that I was the person that had blown the pond off. How
high the pond went I don't know, but I do know that for a week there
wasn't any sign of it, and then most unexpectedly out of what appeared
to be a clear sky there came the most extraordinary rain-storm you
ever saw. It literally poured down for two days, and, what I alone
could understand, with it came trout and sunfish and minnows, and most
singular to all but myself an old scow that was recognised as the
property of the owner of the pond suddenly appeared in the sky falling
toward the earth at a fearful rate of speed. When I saw the scow
coming I was more frightened than ever because I was afraid it might
fall upon and kill some of our neighbours. Fortunately, however, this
possible disaster was averted, for it came down directly over the
sharp-pointed lightning-rod on the tower of our public library and
stuck there like a piece of paper on a file.

"The rain washed away several acres of finely cultivated farms, but
the losses on crops and fences and so forth were largely reduced by
the fish that came with the storm. One farmer took a rake and caught
three hundred pounds of trout, forty pounds of sun-fish, eight
turtles, and a minnow in his potato patch in five minutes. Others were
almost as fortunate, but the damage was sufficiently large to teach me
that parents cannot be too careful about what they let their children
do on the day they celebrate."

"And weren't you ever punished?" asked the Twins.

"No, indeed," said the Baron. "Nobody ever knew that I did it because
I never told them. In fact you are the only two persons who ever heard
about it, and you mustn't tell, because there are still a number of
farmers around that region who would sue me for damages in case they
knew that I was responsible for the accident."

[Illustration: "Out of what appeared to be a clear sky came the most
extraordinary rain storm you ever saw." _Chapter VI._]

"That was pretty awful," said the Twins. "But we don't want to blow up
ponds so as to get cascadeses, but we do want