Bart was soon in the midst of the fray. Every live boy in Pleasantville was in evidence about the village pleasure grounds, the common and the hill. Group after group greeted Bart with excited exclamations. He was a general favorite with the small boys, always ready to assist or advise them, and an acknowledged leader with those of his own age.
He soon found himself quite active in devising and assisting various minor displays of squibs, rockets and colored lights. Then he got mixed up in a general rush for the sheer top of the hill amid the excited announcement that something unusual was going on there.
The crowd was met by a current of juvenile humanity.
"Run!" shouted an excited voice, "she's going off."
"No, she ain't," pronounced another scoffingly—"ain't lighted yet—no one's got the nerve to do it."
Bart recognized the last speaker as Dale Wacker, a nephew of Lem. He had noticed a little earlier his big brother, Ira, a loutish, overgrown fellow who had 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."