



Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE]

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VOL. III.--NO. 135. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.

Tuesday, May 30, 1882. Copyright, 1882, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50 per
Year, in Advance.

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[Illustration: "BOW-WOW!"]




THE BIG BLAST AT THE STONE QUARRY.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.


It was Friday afternoon, right in the middle of May, and it seemed as if
the wide front door of Prome Centre Academy would never get through
letting out just one more squad of boys or girls. It was quite the
customary thing for Felix McCue to have to wait a little later than the
rest.

Miss Eccles was a faithful teacher, and she had often told Felix what an
interest she took in him; but he could have heard it a great deal more
thankfully at any other time than just after school, and when he knew
the other boys were waiting for him. He knew they were, because he had
showed them his slate in the arithmetic class, and they had read on it,
in big letters, "Got something to tell you. Big."

He had printed every word of it, and he was glad he had done so now, for
if he had not he would have been all alone when he at last got outside
of the great door. He did not do that, either, until Miss Eccles had
looked him in the face for ten of the longest minutes, and talked to
him, with a ruler in one hand and a book in the other.

Felix had listened, and he had said "yessum," very respectfully, every
time she mentioned George Washington or Benjamin Franklin, but for all
that he was only three seconds in reaching the open air, after she said:

"You may go now, Felix, but I hope you will bring no more bumble-bees
into this school-room."

"Yessum," and he was off so quickly that he did not hear Miss Eccles,
who was trying hard not to laugh right out, and saying to herself:

"The queer little rogue! To think of his telling me, 'Plaze, mum, thim
bees knew just the wans to go for; ye cudn't have picked out betther
b'ys to have 'em light on.' And what I'm to do with him puzzles me. He's
one of the brightest boys in the whole school."

At that moment Felix was walking away from the academy with a boy of
about his own size on either side of him.

"B'ys," he was saying, "did yez know me uncle Mike was boss at the
shtone quarry?"

"I did," said Bun Gates, on his left; and Rube Hollenhouser, on the
right, inquired, almost anxiously, "Was that the big news you kept us
waiting for?"

"Was it that, indade? No; but he was along the green this very noon,
while I was hidin' Pete Mather's hat in the big maple-tree, and he towld
me if I wanted to see the biggest blast of rock that iver was touched
off at wan firing, I'd betther be where I could see the shtone quarry a
little before noon to-morrow."

That was big enough news to satisfy anybody. The quarry was only a mile
or so down the creek, and not a long distance from the bank. It had not
been worked for some years, but Mr. Mike McCue was known to be a
contractor for the new railroad, and Felix was his nephew. There was
perfect confidence to be put, therefore, in the tidings; but Felix
added:

"He bid me not tell everybody, for they don't want a crowd around. I
asked him wud it be safe on the wather, and he said, 'Yes, it wud, or in
it, or undher it, or on the far side of it.' So that's the way we'd
betther go."

It was a trifle doubtful which of the ways suggested by his uncle was
the one Felix recommended adopting, but Bun instantly exclaimed:

"We can get old Harms's boat. He'll lend it to me any day. It'll hold
half a dozen."

"Kape shtill about it, thin. Mebbe Uncle Mike doesn't want to scare the
village. He said they'd all hear it whin it kem."

"Loud as