“Then don’t stand fooling, Will, but load the pistols.”
The sun had set, and the boys’ bedroom facing the east, it was somewhat dark within it. Will knew he must hurry, for it was getting late, and Henry would soon be ready. His old dread about taking the pistols returned, and his hand trembled with suppressed excitement as he snatched them up.
“I’ll load ’em,” he said desperately, “but I don’t like to do it.”
“Don’t be chicken-hearted at the last minute, Will; you know I rely on you to help me;” Henry called out, from the adjoining room.
“Never mind,” Will replied confusedly, as he opened the drawer of which Henry had spoken. There were many things in this drawer, arranged in excellent order, Henry thought; but to anyone else, everything seemed to be in appalling disorder, as though thrown into it at random. Boxes, strings, cords, fishhooks, slate-pencils, lead-pencils, discarded buttons; a glass ink-bottle that a blue-eyed girl had once given him for prompting her against the rules; a top that a dead brother had spun in days gone by; a diary that began with a grand flourish and ended miserably on the fifth page; and several other things, were stowed away in that drawer. If the reader wishes to know exactly what its contents were, let him look into the sanctum of such a boy as Henry.
Groping among these things, Will found his cousin’s powder-flask, poured a generous charge into the barrel of both pistols, and then rammed in a wad.
“Ready?” asked Henry, as he slipped on the second boot.
“Oh, yes; in a minute;” Will replied, becoming very much confused.
Fumbling in the drawer again, he drew out a box which he supposed held the bullets. Tearing off the lid without stopping to examine what the soft black balls really were, he dropped one into each barrel, and secured it with a wad.
Poor boy! Of course he had made a blunder, and mistaken artificial balls, that Henry had made for his little brothers pog-gun, for leaden bullets! These balls were made of tow, soaked in water, and then rounded into shape. They were excellent for a pop-gun, but rather out of place in a pistol.