“'Taint against the law, is it?” said the old man as he handed down a tin cannister of powder. “I want excitement, and valuable information, but I don't want to unduly excite the neighbors.”
“Oh, don't worry about the neighbors,” said the boy, as he poured a little powder under the barrel of dried apples. “Now, as you say, this is Port Arthur. This chest of Oolong tea represents a Japanese cruiser outside the harbor. This box of codfish represents a Russian fort, see? and the stove represents a Russian cruiser. This barrel of ax handles is the Russian army, entrenched behind the bag of coffee. Now, we put a little powder under all of thems and lay a train from one to the other, and now you get out a few of those giant firecrackers you had left over from last Fourth of July, and a Roman candle, and we can illustrate the whole business so Alexovitch and Ito would take to the woods.”
“No danger, is there?” said the old groceryman, as he brought out the fireworks, looking as happy and interested as the bad boy did. “I want to post myself on war in the far east, but I don't want to do anything that would occasion remark.”
“Oh, remark nothing,” said the boy, as he fixed a firecracker under a barrel of rice, another under a tin can of soda crackers, and got the Roman candle ready to touch off at the stove. “It will not make any more fuss than faking a flash-light photograph. Just a piff—s—s—sis—boom—and there you are, full of information.”
“Well, let-er-go-Galiagher,” said the old man, sort of reckless like, as he got behind the cheese box. “Gol darn the expense, when you want to illustrate your ideas of war.”
The boy lit the Roman candle, got behind a barrel of potatoes and turned the spluttering Roman candle on the giant firecracker under the stove, and when he saw the fuse of the firecracker was lighted, he turned the torch on the powder under the barrel of dried apples, and in a second everything went kiting; the barrel of dried apples with the cat in it went up to the ceiling, the stove was blown over the counter, the cheese box and the old groceryman went with a crash to the back end of the store, the front windows blew out on the sidewalk, the store was full of smoke, the old man rushed out the back door with his whiskers singed and yelled “Fire!” while the bad boy fell out the front door his eye winkers gone, and his hair singed, the cat got out with no hair to brag on, and before they could breathe twice the fire department came clattering up to a hydrant and soon turned the hose inside the grocery. There was not very much fire, and after tipping over every barrel and box that had not been blown skyhigh the firemen gave one last look at the inside of the grocery, one last squirt at the burned and singed cat, that had crawled into a bag of cinnamon on the top shelf, and they went away, leaving the doors and windows open; the crowd dispersed, and the bad boy went in the front door; peered around under the counter, pulled the cork out of a bottle of olive oil and began to anoint himself where he had been scorched. Hearing a shuffling of arctic overshoes filled with water, in the back shed, and a still small voice, saying, “Well, I'll be condemned,” he looked up and saw the red face of the old groceryman peeking in the back door.
{Illustration: When the Fireworks Went Off in the Grocery.}
“Come in, Alexandroviski, and rub some of this sweet oil on your countenance, and put some kerosene on your head, where the hair was. Gee! but you are a sight! Don't you go out anywhere and let a horse see you, or he will run away.”