anding, "Do be careful of the
child, Henry!" It did not seem as if she could be a good mother when she
tried, and she was about the afraidest mother in the Boy's Town.

All the way up to the court-house the boys kept snickering and whispering,
"Don't stump your toe, child," and "Be careful of the child, boys," and
things like that till Pony had to fight some of them. Then they stopped.
They were afraid his father would hear, anyway.

But the fireworks were splendid, and the fellows were very good to Pony,
because his father stood in the middle of the crowd and treated them to
lemonade, and they did not plague, any more, going home. It was ten
o'clock when Pony got home; it was the latest he had ever been up.

The very Fourth of July before that one he had been up pretty nearly as
late listening to his cousin, Frank Baker, telling about the fun he had
been having at a place called Pawpaw Bottom; and the strange thing that
happened there, if it did happen, for nobody could exactly find out. So I
think I had better break off again from Pony, and say what it was that
Frank told; and after that I can go on with Pony's running off.

VII

HOW FRANK BAKER SPENT THE FOURTH
AT PAWPAW BOTTOM, AND SAW
THE FOURTH OF JULY BOY

It was the morning of the Fourth, and Frank was so anxious to get through
with his wood-sawing, and begin celebrating with the rest of the boys,
that he hardly knew what to do. He had a levvy (as the old Spanish _real_
used to be called in southern Ohio) in his pocket, and he was going to buy
a pack of shooting-crackers for ten cents, and spend the other two cents
for powder. He had no pistol, but he knew a fellow that would lend him his
pistol part of the time, and he expected to have about the best Fourth he
ever had. He had been up since three o'clock watching the men fire the old
six-pounder on the river-bank; and he was going to get his mother to let
him go up to the fireworks in the court-house yard after dark.

But now it did not seem as if he could get wood enough sawed. Twice he
asked his mother if she thought he had enough, but she said "Not near,"
and just as Jake Milrace rode up the saw caught in a splinter of the tough
oak log Frank was sawing and bumped back against Frank's nose; and he
would have cried if it had not been for what Jake began to say.

He said he was going to Pawpaw Bottom to spend the Fourth at a fellow's
named Dave Black, and he told Frank he ought to go too; for t