Phil was busy sweeping up dead leaves for the camp-fire.  Suddenly he dropped his old broom and went trotting off toward the house.  “I am going to get something that will make it sound like a real war,” he said to me as he left.  The boys did not hear him, and he came back presently, with his little blue blouse all pouched out in front with the things he had stuffed inside of it.

I followed him into the tent and watched him unload.  First there was the old powder-horn that always hangs over the hall mantelpiece.  Then there was a big, wide-necked bottle, a large, clean handkerchief, and a spool of thread.  “You see this, Dago?” he said to me.  “Now you watch and see what happens.”

He tore the hem off the handkerchief, poured a lot of powder into the middle of the square that was left, and then drew the corners together in one hand.  With the other hand he squeezed the powder into a ball in the middle of the handkerchief, and wrapped the thread around and around above it to keep the wad in place.

“Now I’ll put the wad of powder into the bottle,” he said, “and leave the ends of the cloth sticking out for a fuse.  See?”

I didn’t know anything about gunpowder then, so I put my head close to his as he squatted there in the tent, talking as he worked.  “Come on, Dago,” he said, when it was ready, “I’ll light this at the camp-fire and hold the bottle straight out in the air, so it won’t hurt anything.  It’ll go off like a pistol—­bim!—­and make the boys jump out of their boots.”  I thought it would be better for me to get out of the way if a racket like that was coming, so I scuttled up to the top of the tent-pole.

Phil stooped down by the bonfire, held the rag to the coals until it began to smoulder, and swung around to point it at the fence.  There was no sound.  Evidently the bottle did not make as good a pistol as he thought it would.  “The light’s gone out,” he muttered, bringing the bottle cautiously around to look at it.  Then he blew it, either to see if he could rekindle it, or to make sure that the last spark was out,—­I could not tell.  The next instant there was a puff, a flash, and then, jungles of my ancestors! such a noise and such screams and such a smell of burning powder!  After that I could see nothing but a tangled mass of boys, all legs and elbows, crowding around poor little Phil to see what had happened.  If war is like that, then my voice and vote are henceforth for peace, and peace alone.  It’s awful!

They carried him up-stairs, and his father was sent for, and the neighbours came running in as soon as the boys had scampered home with the news.  For awhile it seemed to me that the whole world was topsy-turvy.  Miss Patricia was so frightened she couldn’t do a thing.  I really pitied her, for her hands trembled and her voice shook, and even the little bunches of gray curls bobbed up and down against her pale cheeks.  I have had the shivers so often that I can sympathise with any one whose nerves are unstrung from fright.