Bart Stirlings Road to Success | Page 4

gone around with his hands in his pockets sneering at the innocent fun the smaller boys were indulging in, and bragging about his own especial Fourth of July supply of fireworks which were to come from some mysterious source not clearly defined. The Wacker brothers belonged to a crowd Bart did not train with usually, but as Dale espied him and seized his arm energetically, Bart did not draw away, respecting the occasion and its courtesies.
"You're the very fellow!" declared Dale.
"You bet he is!" cried two others, crowding up and slapping Bart on the back. "He won't crawfish. Give him the punk, Dale."
The person addressed extended a lighted piece of punk.
"Yes, take it, Stirling," he said. "Show him, boys."
"Yes, you'll have to show me," suggested Bart significantly. "What's the mystery, anyhow?"
"No mystery at all," answered Dale, "only a surprise. See it--well, it's loaded."
"Clean to the muzzle!" bubbled over an excited urchin.
They were all pointing to the top of the hill. Bart understood, for clearly outlined against the light of the rising moon stood the grim old sentinel that had done duty as a patriotic reminder of the Civil War for many a year.
"Old Hurricane" the relic cannon had been dubbed when what was left of Company C, Second Infantry, came marching back home in the sixties.
There was not a boy in town who had not straddled the black ungainly relic, or tried to lift the heavy cannon balls that symmetrically surrounded its base support.
Two years before, Colonel Harrington had erected at his own expense a lofty flagpole at the side of the cannon and donated an elegant flag. Every Washington's Birthday and Fourth of July since, this site had been the center of all public patriotic festivities, and the headquarters for celebrating for juvenile Pleasantville.
Bart was a little startled as he comprehended what was in the wind. He thrilled a trifle; his eyes sparkled brightly.
"It's all right, Stirling," assured Dale Wacker. "We cleaned out the barrel and we've rammed home a good solid charge, with a long fuse ready to light. Guess it will stir up the sleepy old town for once, hey?"
Bart was in for any harmless sport, yet he fumbled the lighted piece of punk undecidedly.
"I don't know about this, fellows"--he began.
"Oh! don't spoil the fun, Stirling," pleaded little Ned Sawyer, a rare favorite with Bart. "We asked one-legged Dacy on the quiet. He was in the war, and he says the gun can't burst, or anything."
The crowd kept pushing Bart forward in eager excitement.
"Why don't you light it yourself?" inquired Bart of Dale.
"I've sprained my foot--limping now," explained young Wacker. "She may kick, you see, and soon as you light her you want to scoot."
"Go ahead, Bart! touch her off," implored little Sawyer, quivering with excitement.
"Whoop! hurrah!" yelled a frantic chorus as Bart took a voluntary step up the hill.
That decided him--patriotism was in the air and he was fully infected. One or two of the larger boys advanced with him, but halted at a safe distance, while the younger ones danced about and stuck their fingers in their ears, screaming.
Bart got to the side of the cannon. It was silhouetted in the landscape on a slight slant towards the stately mansion and grounds of Colonel Harrington, in full view at all times of the magnate who had improved its surroundings.
Bart made out a long fuse trailing three feet or more over the side of the old fieldpiece. He blew the punk to a bright glow.
"Ready!" he called back merrily over his shoulder.
The hillside vibrated with the flutter of expectant juvenile humanity and a vast babel of half-suppressed excited voices.
Bart applied the punk, there was a fizz, a sharp hiss, a writhing worm of quick flame, and then came a fearful report that split the air like the crack of doom.

CHAPTER III
COUNTING THE COST
Bart had quickly moved to one side of the cannon after lighting the fuse, and was about twenty feet away when the explosion came.
The alarming echoes, the shock, flare and smoke combined to give him a terrific sensation.
The crowd that had retreated down the hill in delightful trepidation now came trooping back filled with a bolder excitement.
They had indeed "waked the natives," for gazing downhill against the lights of the street and stores at its base they could see people rushing outdoors in palpable agitation.
Some were staring up the hill in wonder and terror, others were starting for its summit, among them two village officials, as demonstrated by the silver stars they wore.
"They heard it--it woke 'em up, right enough!" shrieked little Sawyer in a frenzy of happiness.
"Look yonder!" piped a second breathless voice. "Say, I thought I heard something strike."
Dale Wacker came upon the scene--not limping, but chuckling and winking to the cronies at his back.
"Pretty good aim, eh, fellows?" he gloated. "Stirling,