“Pa and Ma were going to call on a she deacon that night, that has lots of money in the bank, to see if she didn't want to invest in a dead sure paying silver mine, and me and my chum concluded to give them a send off. We got my big black injy rubber foot-ball, and painted '_Dinymight_' in big white letters on it, and tied a piece of tarred rope to it for a fuse, and got a big fire cracker, one of those old fourth of July horse scarers, and a basket full of broken glass. We put the foot-ball in front of the step and lit the tarred rope, and got under the step with the firecrackers and basket, where they go down into the basement. Pa and Ma came out the front door, and down the steps, and Pa saw the football, and the burning fuse, and he said 'Great God, Hanner, we are blowed up!' and he started to run, and Ma she stopped to look at it. Just as Pa started to run I touched off the fire cracker, and my chum arranged it to pour out the broken glass on the brick pavement just as the fire cracker went off.” [Illustration: Great God, Hanner, we are blowed up 048] “Well, everything went just as we expected, except Ma. She had examined the foot-ball, and concluded it was not dangerous, and was just giving it a kick as the firecracker went off, and the glass fell, and the firecracker was so near her that it scared her, and when Pa looked around Ma was flying across the sidewalk, and Pa heard the noise and he thought the house was blown to atoms. O, you'd a died to see him go around the corner. You could play crokay on his coat-tail, and his face was as pale as Ma's when she goes to a party. But Ma didn't scare much. As quick as she stopped against the hitching post she knew it was us boys, and she came down there, and maybe she didn't maul me. I cried and tried to gain her sympathy by telling her the firecracker went off before it was due, and burned my eyebrows off, but she didn't let up until I promised to go and find Pa.