"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.