"Won't let you come out the night before the Fourth!" he exclaimed. "Gee! I'd like to see anybody stop me. What's he 'fraid of?" "He isn't afraid," replied the boy. "He's mad because they make so much noise he can't sleep. He says they haven't any right to fire off guns and things on the Fourth." "Hm!" sniffed Tim. "Henry Burns says you have, and I guess he knows. He's read all about it. He says there was a man named Adams who was a president once, and he said everybody ought to make all the noise they could; get out and fire guns, and blow horns, and beat on pans and yell like everything, and build bonfires and fire off firecrackers." "Did he?" said the boy. "And did he say anything about getting out the night before?" "Well, I dunno about that," answered Tim Reardon; "but of course the patrioticker you are, why, the sooner you begin. It's the Fourth of July the minute the clock strikes twelve--and, cracky, won't we make a racket then? Henry Burns, he's got a cannon; and so's Jack Harvey and Tom Harris and Bob White, and the Warren fellers they've got three, and a lot of other fellers have got 'em. Just you wait till the clock strikes, and there'll be some fun." "I wish I could come out," said the boy, earnestly. "Too bad you can't. You miss all the fun," said Little Tim. "I'll bet George Washington was out the first of any of 'em on the Fourth of July, when he was a boy." Tim's knowledge of history was not quite so ample as his patriotic ardour. "Why don't you come, anyway?" he ventured. "Just tie a string around your big toe, and hang the string out the window, and I'll come around and wake you up. I'm going to wake George Baker that way. I don't go to bed at all the night before the Fourth." The boy shook his head. "No, I guess not," he replied. "But say," he added quickly, "come around in front of the house and make all the racket you can, will you? I'd like to hear it, if I can't get out." "You bet we will," responded Tim, heartily. "Sammy Willis, his father won't let him come out, and we're going 'round there; and Joe Turner, his father won't let him come out, and we're going there, too. There's where we go to, most." Tim did not explain whether this was from patriotic motives or otherwise. But the small boy looked pleased. "Be sure and come around," he said. "Oh, you'll hear from us, all right," replied Tim. It was quite evident that something would be heard when, some hours later, about a quarter of an hour before midnight, a group of boys had gathered in the square in front of Willie Perkins's house. There was an array of small cannon ranged about that would have sent joy to the heart of a youthful Knox or Steuben. The boys were engaged in the act of loading these with blasting powder, purchased at a reduced price from the rock blasters in the valley below.