“On come the wagon, slow and steady--just as if a chunk of the dark had got loose from the rest of the dark and was moving on by itself. It come close to the horse block and I could see it wa’n’t going down any of the roads. Then I heard a clattering sound, and I knew they were going over the round stones of the gutter, and the off horse struck out a spark with his hoof. When I saw ’em a-following me up so close I thought certain it was me they was after. But I had a good place for dodging--out by the meeting-house sheds, or down the court-house steps into the cellar, or round the wood pile--good places all of them, and I thought I would chance it. But there wa’n’t no call for dodging. The wagon just rolled quietly on a few steps and then stood stockstill and six black shadows rose up one by one and got out on to the ground, and when I saw that, why I could have squealed right out a-laughing. “I meant to see what they were after, so I dragged myself along like a worm in the shadow of that bad-smelling green stuff that edges the driveway, and I found out they were boys from over the line and they had come for our gun. Phil Basset was bossing around--same as he tried to when he came to the academy before Ethan settled him. He was wheezing away like the croup, talking in big whispers full of wind, telling everybody else to keep still, and where to put the crowbars and how to lift all together when he give the word, one, two, three! But just as he got to ‘three,’ there was a pin pointing toward the calf of his leg, and I braced myself against that pin and it naturally sent me off down the knoll, quiet-like and out of the way, and it left him hollering and kicking. Then everybody dropped flat till they see whether any one in the village heard the noise. When they went to work again Phil said he’d been taken with cramp and couldn’t lift. But they got the gun onto the wagon and started for home. Phil drove ’cause his leg was lame and they was his father’s horses. The other five boys had gone on ahead. “Well, when I saw that gun moving off, and I thought how that was ours for sure, and we’d got it from the English and how we’d got ourselves from the English--Fourth of July and all, so that they couldn’t ever boss us again, and so that everybody was his own boss in this country--why something rose up in my throat and choked me. Then I thought about Eth, ’cause he’d had charge of the gun, and he’d been awful good and let me help clean her up, and how we’d dug the rust out of her and greased her and polished her, and he’d showed me the powder and things for to-morrow and said I might touch her off the first bang--then I nearly busted, only I saw that it wasn’t any time for busting. I just got myself together pretty quick and jumped for the tailboard of that wagon. I hung on--I thought I’d stick to that gun, and if I died a sticking there, well then I’d die.