fuse. See?"

I didn't know anything about gunpowder then, so I put my head close to
his as he squatted there in the tent, talking as he worked. "Come on,
Dago," he said, when it was ready, "I'll light this at the camp-fire
and hold the bottle straight out in the air, so it won't hurt
anything. It'll go off like a pistol--bim!--and make the boys jump out
of their boots." I thought it would be better for me to get out of the
way if a racket like that was coming, so I scuttled up to the top of
the tent-pole.

Phil stooped down by the bonfire, held the rag to the coals until it
began to smoulder, and swung around to point it at the fence. There
was no sound. Evidently the bottle did not make as good a pistol as he
thought it would. "The light's gone out," he muttered, bringing the
bottle cautiously around to look at it. Then he blew it, either to
see if he could rekindle it, or to make sure that the last spark was
out,--I could not tell. The next instant there was a puff, a flash,
and then, jungles of my ancestors! such a noise and such screams and
such a smell of burning powder! After that I could see nothing but a
tangled mass of boys, all legs and elbows, crowding around poor little
Phil to see what had happened. If war is like that, then my voice and
vote are henceforth for peace, and peace alone. It's awful!

They carried him up-stairs, and his father was sent for, and the
neighbours came running in as soon as the boys had scampered home with
the news. For awhile it seemed to me that the whole world was
topsy-turvy. Miss Patricia was so frightened she couldn't do a thing.
I really pitied her, for her hands trembled and her voice shook, and
even the little bunches of gray curls bobbed up and down against her
pale cheeks. I have had the shivers so often that I can sympathise
with any one whose nerves are unstrung from fright.

The doctor turned us all out of the room, and I waited with the boys
out by the alley-gate until he came down-stairs and told us how badly
Phil was burned. His front hair and eyebrows and beautiful long curly
lashes were singed off, and his face was so full of powder that it was
as speckled as a turkey egg. The grains would have to be picked out
one by one,--a slow and painful proceeding. The doctor could not tell
how badly his eyes were hurt until next day, but thought he would have
to lie in a dark room for a week at least, with his eyelids covered
with cotton that had been dipped in some so