"B'ys," he was saying, "did yez know me uncle Mike was boss at the shtone quarry?"
"I did," said Bun Gates, on his left; and Rube Hollenhouser, on the right, inquired, almost anxiously, "Was that the big news you kept us waiting for?"
"Was it that, indade? No; but he was along the green this very noon, while I was hidin' Pete Mather's hat in the big maple-tree, and he towld me if I wanted to see the biggest blast of rock that iver was touched off at wan firing, I'd betther be where I could see the shtone quarry a little before noon to-morrow."
That was big enough news to satisfy anybody. The quarry was only a mile or so down the creek, and not a long distance from the bank. It had not been worked for some years, but Mr. Mike McCue was known to be a contractor for the new railroad, and Felix was his nephew. There was perfect confidence to be put, therefore, in the tidings; but Felix added:
"He bid me not tell everybody, for they don't want a crowd around. I asked him wud it be safe on the wather, and he said, 'Yes, it wud, or in it, or undher it, or on the far side of it.' So that's the way we'd betther go."
It was a trifle doubtful which of the ways suggested by his uncle was the one Felix recommended adopting, but Bun instantly exclaimed:
"We can get old Harms's boat. He'll lend it to me any day. It'll hold half a dozen."
"Kape shtill about it, thin. Mebbe Uncle Mike doesn't want to scare the village. He said they'd all hear it whin it kem."
"Loud as that?" said Rube. "Are they going to blast the whole quarry at once?"
"That's what I asked him, and he said, 'No; ownly the wist half of it.' It's the new powdher they're putting in. None of your common shooting powdher at all. It's a kind that bursts fifty times at wance."