The mule, hearing the sizzing of the fuze, began to rear and snort and kick and whirl about, while the officer and his men scudded to cover, and flattened themselves out upon the ground. They had not long to wait when there was a terrific crash. The gun had exploded under the overcharge, with the utter demolition of the mule carriage.
The Indians, hearing the report, looked quickly about them, and seeing the fragments of an exploded mule rocketing through the air, were frightened nearly out of their wits, and fled precipitately.
HOW GUSSIE GOT LOADED
When I was a young man I taught several terms of school in Maine, where, in the small country districts, the teacher is expected to be a walking encyclopedia of information.
One day there came a loud knock upon the door of the schoolhouse. On going out to see what was the cause of the imperative summons, I found standing there the wife of one of the neighbors, white as a sheet with agitation and alarm. She excitedly told me that her little boy, Gussie, had just swallowed a bullet, and she asked me what she should do for him.
“Why,” said I pleasantly, “Give him a good charge of gunpowder. But be careful not to point him toward anybody.”
She went home and gave him a dose of gunpowder, without ever seeing the joke.