CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT DAY
From far off came a sound of popping and snapping,—some boy, unable to wait, was trying a few fire-crackers. It still lacked a day or two of the Fourth of July, and the strain was telling on us.
A door that was slammed or a whip that was cracked took on a new significance, while the fish-pedlers' horns seemed to have an altogether unusual note.
Underneath my bed was a box containing fifteen bunches of fire-crackers, ordinary size; three bunches of cannon crackers; two single gigantic fellows; and some sticks of slow-match. There were also the five boxes of Ajax torpedoes, twisted tight in their red paper, and slumbering now in sawdust, but all ready to explode delightfully when the time came.
Jimmy Toppan had taken the wrappers from his fire-crackers, and separated the crackers. Slowly and painfully he had disentangled the fuses which some Chinese workman had skilfully braided together. It had taken a whole afternoon to do it, but now he had no one knew how many thousands of crackers, neatly piled in a large cigar-box.
He was prepared for the morning of the Fourth, when he could sit down in some convenient place,—the curb-stone, for instance, with a stick of lighted slow-match in one hand, and the cigar-box full of fire-crackers beside him.
Then, with due deliberation, he could choose a fire-cracker, bring the glowing end of the slow-match to the fuse of the cracker, throw the latter into the street as soon as it began to spit out sparks, and wait ecstatically for the explosion.
As soon as this had occurred he could repeat the whole operation,—for hours.