The Rival Campers Ashore: or, The Mystery of the Mill

"Well, I dunno about that," answered Tim Reardon; "but of course the patrioticker 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 in a handful of grass and some more newspaper, hammering on the ram-rod with a brick, regardless of any danger of premature explosion. The coarse powder was not "lively," however, and had always stood such handling. The process was continued until the cannon was stuffed to the muzzle. Then a few grains were dropped over the touch-hole, a long strip of paper laid over this, weighted down with a small pebble, and was ready for lighting.

"There," said Harvey, relinquishing the ram-rod to the youth, "that'll speak. If you fill 'em full of powder they don't make half the noise."

Simultaneously, Henry Burns, the Warren boys, Tom Harris, Bob White and a dozen other lads had been loading and priming their respective pieces; and presently they stood awaiting the striking of the town clocks.

Willie Perkins's father, who had been hard at work all the evening with a congenial party in his office, at a game of euchre, was just getting his first nap, having congratulated himself on retiring, that, if the neighbourhood's rest was disturbed, his son at least would not contribute toward it. Willie Perkins, having extended a cordial invitation to the boys to come around and visit his esteemed parent, was himself fast asleep.

Clang! The first town clock to take cognizance of the arrival of the glorious Fourth struck a lusty note, that rang out loudly on the clear night air. But there was no response from the eager gunners. It was not yet Fourth of July. It would have gone hard with the boy that had fired.

Clang and clang again. The twelfth call was still ringing in the iron throat of the old bell, high in its steeple, when Harvey shouted, "Now give it to her!"

There was a hasty scratching of matches. The strips of paper began to burn; slowly at first, while the boys scattered; then quickly, sputtering as the flame caught the first few grains of powder.

A moment later, it seemed to Willie Perkins's father as though he had been lifted completely out of his bed by some violent concussion, while a roar like the blast of battle shook the house. The glorious Fourth had begun in Benton.

Springing to his feet, Mr. Perkins uttered a denunciation of the day that would have made the signers of the Declaration of Independence turn in their graves, while he rushed to the window. Throwing it open, he peered out into the square. There was not a boy in sight. Retreat had already begun, ignominiously, from the field.

"If they come around again – " muttered Mr. Perkins. He did not finish the sentence, but went along a hallway and looked into his son's room. "Are you there, William?" he inquired sternly.

"Yes; can I get up now? Must be most morning."

"Get up!" replied the elder Perkins. "Just let me catch you getting up before daylight! If I had my way, there wouldn't be any firing guns or firecrackers on Fourth of July. It's barbarism – not patriotism.

"Willie," he added, "do you know any of those boys out there to-night?"

"How can I tell, if you won't let me go out?" whined Willie.

"I'd like to know who put it into people's heads to fire off guns on the Fourth," exclaimed Mr. Perkins. "He must have been a rowdy."

Willie Perkins made a mental note that he would look up President Adams next morning, for his father's benefit.

Mr. Perkins returned to his bed-room and closed his eyes once more. His was not a sweet and peaceful sleep, however. Benton was awakening to the Fourth in divers localities, and sounds from afar, of fish-horns and giant crackers, of bells and barking dogs, came in, in tumultuous confusion.

"Confound the Fourth of July!" muttered Mr. Perkins. "I didn't disturb people this way when I was a boy."

But perhaps Mr. Perkins forgot.

There came by, shortly, a party of intensely patriotic youth from the mill settlement under the hill. Their particular brand of patriotism manifested itself in beating with small bars of iron on a large circular saw, suspended on a stick thrust through the hole in its centre and borne triumphantly between two youths. The reverberation, the deafening clangour of this, cannot possibly be described, or appreciated by one that has never heard it. Suffice it to say, that the fish-horns, even the cannon, were insignificant by comparison.

Mr. Perkins groaned and half arose. But the party went along past, without offering to stop – perhaps because they had received no invitation from Willie. Moreover, it seemed as though half the town was astir by this time and giving vent to its enthusiasm. Benton had a remarkable way of getting boyish on the morning of the Fourth, which the elder Perkins could not understand.

When, however, an hour later, another shock of cannon shook his chamber, followed immediately by what sounded to him like a derisive blast of fish-horns, there was no more irresolution left in him. Hastily arising and throwing a coat over his shoulders, and dashing a hat over his eyes – the first one that came to hand, and which happened to be a tall beaver – Mr. Perkins, barefoot and in his night-clothes, a not imposing guardian of the peace, sped down the front stairs and out into the street.

A cry of alarm, the rumble of cannon dragged by ropes over the shoulders of a squad of youths in full flight, and the exclamations of the indignant Mr. Perkins, marked the occasion.

Fear lent its wings to the pursued; wrath served to lighten the bare heels of Mr. Perkins. He was gaining, when one of the youth, cumbered in flight by his artillery piece, let go the string. The cannon remaining in the path of Mr. Perkins, he stumbled over it, and it hurt his toe. He paused and picked up the cannon, but relinquished it to grasp his toe, which demanded all his attention. He decided, then and there, that the pursuit, which had extended about three blocks, was useless, and abandoned it. Limping slightly, he started homeward.

Somewhat like the British retreat from Concord and Lexington, was the return of Mr. Perkins to his home. A piece of burning punk lay in the road, and presently he stepped on that. The fleeing forces had doubled on their tracks, also, and a fire-cracker exploded near him. Then a torpedo. And there was no enemy in sight to take revenge on. Mr. Perkins hastened his steps and was soon, himself, in full retreat.

Then, when presently he was conscious of the raising of curtains in near-by windows, and felt the eyes of several of his neighbours directed toward his weird costume, Mr. Perkins no longed walked. He ran. As he closed the door behind him and tramped wearily up the stairs, the voice of his son greeted him.

"Say, pa, is it time to get up now?"

Mr. Perkins's reply was most decidedly unpatriotic.

The hours went by, and a rapid fire of small artillery ran throughout Benton and along its whole frontier line. Even the bells in the steeples, no longer solemn, clanged forth their defiance to authority – which was the only thing that slumbered in the town on this occasion.

But Benton had other observances for its boisterous display of spirits, the origin of which no one seemed to know, but which were participated in each year by the new generation of youths, with careful observance of tradition.

There were the "Horribles," for example, not to have ridden in which at some time of one's life was to have left one page blank. The procession of "Horribles," otherwise known as "Ragamuffins," usually started at about six in the morning, marching through the streets until nine; – by which time the endurance of a youth who had been out all night usually came to an end.

Now, as the hour of three was passed, certain eager and impatient aspirants for first place in the line began to make their appearance on horseback in the streets of Benton, clattering about on steeds that had never before known a saddle; weird figures, masked uncouthly in pasteboard representations of Indians, animals and what-not, and clad in every sort of costume, from rags to ancient uniforms – a noisy, tatterdemalion band, blowing horns and discharging firearms.

There was Tim Reardon, mounted on an aged truck horse, that drooped its head and ambled with half-closed eyes, as though it might at any moment fall off to sleep again. Sticking like a monkey to its bare back was Tim, his face hidden behind a monstrous mask, his head surmounted by a battered silk hat, extracted from a convenient refuse heap; a fish-horn slung about his neck by a string.

There was Henry Burns, with face blackened and a huge wooden tomahawk at his belt; he, likewise, astride, on one of Mr. Harris's work horses. A more mettlesome steed upheld Jack Harvey, but not at all willingly, since it had an uncertain way of backing without warning into fences and trees, to the detriment of its rider's shins. The firing of a huge horse-pistol by Harvey seemed to aggravate rather than soothe the animal's feelings.

The Warren brothers had contrived a sort of float, consisting of an express wagon, gorgeously covered with coloured cloths, even interwoven in the spokes of the wheels, and wound around the body of the horse that drew it. A wash-boiler, its legitimate usefulness long over, set up in the wagon, was beaten on by Arthur and Joe Warren, while their elder brother drove.

Tom Harris, Bob White and a scattering of other grotesque horsemen came along presently.

"Where'll we go?" queried Harvey, as the squadron paused to rest after a preliminary round of some of the streets.