It was Friday afternoon, right in the middle of May, and it seemed as if
the wide front door of Prome Centre Academy would never get through
letting out just one more squad of boys or girls. It was quite the
customary thing for Felix McCue to have to wait a little later than the
rest.
Miss Eccles was a faithful teacher, and she had often told Felix what an
interest she took in him; but he could have heard it a great deal more
thankfully at any other time than just after school, and when he knew
the other boys were waiting for him. He knew they were, because he had
showed them his slate in the arithmetic class, and they had read on it,
in big letters, "Got something to tell you. Big."
He had printed every word of it, and he was glad he had done so now, for
if he had not he would have been all alone when he at last got outside
of the great door. He did not do that, either, until Miss Eccles had
looked him in the face for ten of the longest minutes, and talked to
him, with a ruler in one hand and a book in the other.
Felix had listened, and he had said "yessum," very respectfully, every
time she mentioned George Washington or Benjamin Franklin, but for all
that he was only three seconds in reaching the open air, after she said:
"You may go now, Felix, but I hope you will bring no more bumble-bees
into this school-room."
"Yessum," and he was off so quickly that he did not hear Miss Eccles,
who was trying hard not to laugh right out, and saying to herself:
"The queer little rogue! To think of his telling me, 'Plaze, mum, thim
bees knew just the wans to go for; ye cudn't have picked out betther
b'ys to have 'em light on.' And what I'm to do with him puzzles me. He's
one of the brightest boys in the whole school."
At that moment Felix was walking away from the academy with a boy of
about his own size on either side of him.
"B'ys," he was saying, "did yez know me uncle Mike was boss at the
shtone quarry?"
"I did," said Bun Gates, on his left; and Rube Hollenhouser, on the
right, inquired, almost anxiously, "Was that the big news you kept us
waiting for?"
"Was it that, indade? No; but he was along the green this very noon,
while I was hidin' Pete Mather's hat in the big maple-tree, and he towld
me if I wanted to see the biggest blast of rock that iver was touched
off at wan firing, I'd betther be where I could see the shtone quarry a
little before noon to-morrow."
That was big enough news to satisfy anybody. The quarry was only a mile
or so down the creek, and not a long distance from the bank. It had not
been worked for some years, but Mr. Mike McCue was known to be a
contractor for the new railroad, and Felix was his nephew. There was
perfect confidence to be put, therefore, in the tidings; but Felix
added:
"He bid me not tell everybody, for they don't want a crowd around. I
asked him wud it be safe on the wather, and he said, 'Yes, it wud, or in
it, or undher it, or on the far side of it.' So that's the way we'd
betther go."
It was a trifle doubtful which of the ways suggested by his uncle was
the one Felix recommended adopting, but Bun instantly exclaimed:
"We can get old Harms's boat. He'll lend it to me any day. It'll hold
half a dozen."
"Kape shtill about it, thin. Mebbe Uncle Mike doesn't want to scare the
village. He said they'd all hear it whin it kem."
"Loud as that?" said Rube. "Are they going to blast the whole quarry at
once?"
"That's what I asked him, and he said, 'No; ownly the wist half of it.'
It's the new powdher they're putting in. None of your common shooting
powdher at all. It's a kind that bursts fifty times at wance."
There was a touch of silence after that utterance, for there were
strange stories in circulation as to the explosive power of the new
invention the railroad men were using. Rube Hollenhouser had heard old
Squire Cudworth say that a "hatful of it would blow up the Constitution
of the United States"; and if that were true, what would not be the
effects of a wagon-load or so touched off all at once upon the stone
quarry?
Bun and Rube were no sooner back from driving their cows that night than
they both went over to the blacksmith's house, and secured the loan of
his boat. Of course they told him what they wanted it for, and he said,
instantly:
"Is that so, boys? Tell you what I'll do. I'd like to see that blast.
I'll go myself. Plenty of room in the boat."
"What shall we do when we get to the mill-dam?" asked Bun. "The quarry's
away below the pond."
"We can get another boat below the dam. If we can't, we can haul mine
around it in five minutes."
The boys had been considering this problem at that very moment, but one
look at Harms the blacksmith was enough to convince any one of his
bodily ability to drag any boat on that creek around anything. He was
tremendously large and strong, and curly-headed and good-natured.
Everybody liked him, and he had more gray beard and mustache than any
other man in Prome Centre.
"It's all fixed, then," said Rube.
"I told Deacon Chittenden about it when I drove his cows in for him, and
he said right away that Katy and Bill could go. They won't take up any
room."
"Plenty of room. Let 'em come. I'd just like to see how far that new
powder can blow a rock. Glad you told me. We'll start in good season to
be there."
So far everything had worked to a charm; but while Bun Gates told his
mother at the supper table what was going to happen, his brother Jeff
spoke right out, "Mother, may I go?"
"Yes," said his mother.
And Aunt Dorcas added at once, "Certainly, and Lois too. But, Almira,
you or I, or both of us, had better go along to take care of them."
Bun said something about the size of Harms's boat, but Aunt Dorcas
silenced him with: "Don't I know how many she can carry? Besides, I'm
bound to see that quarry blown up, just for this once."
So Bun was put down; but when they all got out in front of the gate an
hour or so after breakfast next morning, there was Rube Hollenhouser in
front of his gate, and Felix McCue and little Biddy McCue were with him,
and right across the street were Mrs. Chittenden and Katy Chittenden and
Bill, and Bun said to himself, "If we had my speckled pig and
Chittenden's brindled cow, and if Harms took his dog, the boat'd be
'most full."
Aunt Dorcas and Mrs. Chittenden began to think the party was growing
pretty large, but there was no need of it; for when they reached the
creek, near the bridge, there stood old Harms, and the first word he
spoke was:
"I kind o' guessed how it'd be. Mornin', ladies. Glad we've got a good
load for both boats. You get in with me, and the boys can handle t'other
one."
It was just like Harms. In another minute he remarked: "Git in now, and
we'll shove off."
Aunt Dorcas was already in the very front seat of that boat, and Mrs.
Chittenden was in the middle, trying to balance herself. She made
William sit beside her, and they two made the boat look wider, there was
so much extra room on that seat.
The other boat, the one Harms had borrowed, was almost half a size
larger, and it had a cargo this time; for Lois Gates and Katy Chittenden
were on the front seat, and behind them were Felix and Biddy. Rube was
on the rowing seat, and Bun and Jeff were in the stern.
It was a grand ride down the creek, but when they came out on the
mill-pond, Mrs. Chittenden exclaimed:
"I'd no idea it was so wide. Dear me! If I had dreamed of any such risk
as this, I'd never have come."
"Nonsense!" said Aunt Dorcas. "If Mr. Harms's end of the boat keeps
above water, all the rest will."
"He's a very heavy man," sighed Mrs. Chittenden.
So he was, and when they reached the drag way, around the mill-dam, and
saw him put a roller on the grass and gravel, and drag those boats
around, one after the other, on the roller, and put them in the water
below, they understood that his weight counted for something.
Three-quarters of a mile further down the creek; and now it grew wide
and ran slowly, and seemed to have formed a habit of being generally
deeper. The easterly bank sloped away from the water's edge, becoming
higher and steeper the further they drifted down. It was Biddy McCue who
first shouted:
"Yon's the quarry. See the min on the ridge above? Uncle Mike said there
might be less than a hundred of thim."
It looked as if there were at least a score or two, and the bald,
perpendicular front of the great limestone ledge was worth looking at
for a moment.
"Katy," said Lois, eagerly, "do you see the quarry? That's what they're
going to blow away."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Chittenden. "Mr. Harms, is there any danger?"
"Not unless there's an awful pile of that new powder behind those rocks.
What they want to do is to tumble the upper front of the ledge over, so
it'll fall into the quarry and they can get at it. I'd just like to see
a rock like that come down, pretty nigh a hundred feet."
"Uncle Mike," said Felix, "told us he'd blown up hapes of stone in his
day, but he'd niver fired a blast like this wan."
"Misther Harms, what wud become of us all if the powdher worruked the
wrong way?"
"What way would that be?" said Mr. Harms.
"The other way. I mean, if instead of blowing out the front of the rock,
it lift that all shtanding where it is, and blew out the country to the
back of it?"
Before the big blacksmith could answer this question, Aunt Dorcas, who
had been looking at her watch, remarked:
"Half-past eleven o'clock. If that thing's going to go off before
dinner-time, it's got to go pretty soon."
"Boys," shouted Rube, "see 'em run! There's only one left on the ridge."
"That's me uncle Mike," said Felix, proudly. "He always touches off the
big blasts himself, and thin there's no powdher wasted."
"He's running too," said Bun. "He's afraid the new powder might get
ahead of him."
"Look now, all of you!" shouted Mr. Harms. "Biggest blast ever heard of
around these parts."
They hardly breathed for the next few seconds, but Aunt Dorcas had her
watch in her hand, and she was just saying, "Half a minute," when a
little puff of smoke and dust shot up at the top of the limestone ridge.
It was followed by other little puffs--nobody could tell how many, for
they were all smothered in a sudden cloud that arose for many feet. The
broad front of stone leaned suddenly out, as if it wished to look down
and see what was going on in the old quarry below. Then it lost its
balance at the same instant, and toppled swiftly over. A huge, dull,
booming report went out from the cloud of smoke and dust on the summit,
and that was followed by another great burst of thunderous, crashing
sound, as the masses of solid stone came down upon the rocky level
below.
It all went by before Aunt Dorcas could look at her watch, and she was
just about to do so, when everybody else shouted "Oh!" and there was a
loud splattering splash in the water between the two boats. The only
"flying rock" sent out by the great blast had narrowly missed doing
serious mischief. It had not been a very large one, but only one human
being in either of those boats failed to dodge and lean the other way.
That Mr. Harms did not dodge or lean accounted for the fact that his
boat was only rocked to and fro a little, but for five minutes afterward
Aunt Dorcas was compelled to scold those seven children for tipping
their boat over, "without any kind of reason for it. The stone never
came nigh you."
Still it was a good thing that the water was only two feet deep, and
that the weather was nice and warm.
"B'ys," said Felix McCue, the moment he got his feet on the bottom, and
stood up, dripping, and holding up Biddy, "did yez iver see a blast like
that?"
"Oh, Bun!" screamed Lois, "are there any more stones coming? Was it the
blast that upset us?"
"Mother! mother!" sputtered poor Katy Chittenden, "did it blow you over
too?"
"Rube," said Bun, "Jeff isn't scared a mite. Are you? I ain't."
"Scared?--no," said Rube. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything, and
all we've got's a ducking."
The big blacksmith did a good deal toward restoring a comfortable state
of mind all around; but he could not make out that the other boat-load
were in a comfortable state of body; and so they set out for home. Long
before they got there, however, Katy said to Lois,
"If it wasn't for my new bonnet strings, I wouldn't care," and Lois
replied:
"Yes; but think how that rock looked when it let go and tumbled over. It
was awful! I'm satisfied."