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Rh "Tom, don't you stand too close," said Dick. "That cannon might explode. Light the slow match and then run behind a tree, or the corner of the piazza."

"All right, Dick But I dont think she'll explode," was the reply.

"Hello, goin' to fire her off, eh?" came a voice from the fence, and Jack Ness appeared.

"Yes, Jack," answered Sam. "But keep still—we want to surprise the folks."

"Good enough," murmured the hired man. "You'll do it right enough. Thet old cannon all ways was a snorter fer noise." And he backed away towards the orchard to get behind a tree, out of the way of possible harm.

All being ready, Tom lit a match and applied it to the slow match of the cannon. Then he ran for the corner of the piazza, to join his brothers.

A few seconds passed—they seemed unusually long just then—but nothing happened.

"The slow match must have gone out," murmured Tom.

"Don't go back!—it may go off, yet," answered Dick. "Sometimes"

Bang! went the cannon, and the tremendous report echoed and re-echoed throughout the hills surrounding Valley Brook. The charge had