The Rover Boys Down East: or, The Struggle for the Stanhope Fortune

“Your pocketbook?” asked Sam, who had come around to the kitchen to wash his hands. “Where did you leave it?”

“I had it on that side table. It was wrapped in an old newspaper. I was going to take it up to my room last night and hide it, but I forgot.”

“That newspaper!” ejaculated Sam, and turned slightly pale. “If you had it in that newspaper it was your pocketbook that shot the top off that bee hive!”

CHAPTER XI

A DAY TO REMEMBER

“Great Cicero, is it possible we have shot the cook’s pocketbook to pieces!” murmured Dick, who had come up in time to hear the conversation.

“Shoot it! Did you shoot at my pocketbook?” demanded Sarah.

“We didn’t shoot at it, Sarah,” answered Sam. “I stuffed that paper in the cannon for wadding.”

“What, with my pocketbook in it!” screamed the cook. “Oh, dear! Was ever there such boys!”

“I didn’t know there was anything in the paper. It looked all crumpled up.”

“It was the best paper I could find and I thought it would do,” groaned Sarah. “Oh, dear, what am I to do? Where is the pocketbook now?”

“Blown to kingdom come, I reckon,” murmured the youngest Rover. “But never mind, I’ll buy you a new one.”

“The pocketbook couldn’t have been a very large one,” said Tom, who had come up to learn the cause of the excitement in the kitchen.

“It wasn’t – it was quite small. My sister sent it to me from Chicago, for a birthday present.”

“What did you have in it?” asked Sam anxiously.

“I had four dollars in it in bills, and ten of those new shiny cents, and a ten-cent piece, and a sample of dress goods, and a slip of paper with a new way on it to make grape jelly, and some pills for the headache, and a motto verse, and – and I don’t know what else.”

“Well, that’s enough,” came from Tom. “No wonder the bees kicked at having all that fired at ’em.”

“I’ll give you back the money, Sarah, and get you a new pocketbook,” said Sam. “I’m awfully sorry it happened.”

“Let’s look for the pocketbook,” suggested Dick, and this was done, the boys taking good care, while on the search, to keep out of the range of the bees. All they could find in the orchard were two of the cent pieces and part of the metal clasp of the pocketbook – the rest had disappeared.

“Well, let us be thankful that we didn’t blow the cannon apart, or hit somebody with that charge,” said Dick.

Later the cannon was fired off with more care. It certainly made a loud noise, and a farmer, driving past, said he had heard it away down at Oak Run.

“A feller down there told me he guessed the quarry men were blastin’,” he said. “But I said ’twas a cannon. She kin go some, can’t she!” And he shook his head grimly as he drove on.

The boys and girls spent the morning in firing off the cannon and in shooting off some firecrackers. Mrs. Rover served an elaborate dinner, and had the dining room trimmed in red, white and blue flowers in honor of the national birthday.

“Do you remember how we spent last Fourth,” said Tom, when the meal was about over.

“Indeed I do!” cried Nellie. “Don’t you remember that big imitation cannon cracker you set off on the dining room table of the yacht and how it covered all of us with confetti.”

“Yes, and how Hans Mueller slid under the table in fright!” added Dick; and then all laughed heartily over an affair that I have already described in detail in “The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle.”

“Dear old Hans!” murmured Tom. “I’d like first rate to see him this summer.”

“Let us ask him to the farm for a week,” suggested Sam.

“All right, we will, along with Fred Garrison,” answered Dick.

During the afternoon the boys and girls played croquet and took a short ride in the touring car, and had ice-cream and cake served to them under the trees by Aleck Pop, who wore his waiter outfit for the occasion. Then they sat around until it was dark, and after supper the boys brought forth the fireworks.

“Now, be careful,” warned both their father and their uncle.

“We will be!” they cried, and set off the pieces from a field where they could not possibly do harm. The girls and the ladies, as well as the men, watched proceedings with interest.

“Oh, how grand!” cried Dora, as the rockets curved gracefully through the air.

“Beautiful!” murmured Grace.

“I could look at fireworks all night!” declared Nellie.

The fireworks came to an end with a set piece called Uncle Sam. It fizzed and flared brightly, showing the well-known face of the old man and the big hat. Then Tom commenced to pull a wire and Uncle Sam took his hat off and put it on.

“Oh, how cute!” cried Grace.

“Last act!” cried Tom, and set fire to a slow match that was near. Presently some flower pots commenced to send up a golden shower, and then, from a wire between two trees there blazed forth the words “Good Night.”

“Well, that was very nice indeed!” was Mrs. Stanhope’s comment.

“As nice an exhibition of fireworks as I ever saw,” declared Mrs. Laning.

“Just what I say!” cried Mrs. Rover. “The boys certainly know how to get up a show!”

After the fireworks came darkness, but neither the boys nor the girls seemed to mind this. They paired off, and took walks around the house and down the roadway. Perhaps a good many silly things were said, but, if so, there was no harm in them. The only ones who were really serious were Dick and Dora, and seeing this Tom nudged Nellie in the side.

“Looks like they were getting down to business, doesn’t it?” he observed, dryly.

“Oh, Tom, hush, they might hear you!” she whispered.

“You’ll have Dick for a cousin-in-law some day.”

“Well, I shan’t mind.”

“How about having him for a brother-in-law, Nellie?”

At this suggestion Nellie’s face grew crimson.

“Tom Rover, you’re the limit!”

“Well, how about it?” he persisted.