Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1911-06-29

tired and sleepy. So instead OF spend
ing any money on firecrackers and tor
pedoes and rockets / spent SO of it OH
powder and 81 on putty blowers.
What | wanted to do was TO make
one grand effort and provide passershy
with a free exhibitions of what / was
going to call 'Carraway's Grand Gey-
ser Cascade To do this properly I
SET my eye upon a fish pond not far
from h town hall. 1t was q very
deep pond and about a mile in circum
ference. Putty blowers were then SELL
ing at five for q cent. and powder was
cheap rs sand. owing to the fact that
the powder makers, expecting a war.
had made a hundred times as much as
was needed, and as their war didn't
come they We're willing to take almost
anything they could get for it. The
consequence was !hst the powder l got
was sufficient in quantity to fill Il rub
Der bag as large as five sofa cushions.
This / sank in the mid ..'a of the
pond. withou: telling anyt~dy what |
intended to d.. and through .;e putty
blowers. sealed tightly together, end to
end, l conducted a fuse which / made
myself. from the powder bag to the
shore. My idea was hat / could to::ch
the thing off. you know, and that about
sixty square feet of the pond would fly
up I'm the air and then fall gracefully
back again. If it had worked as l ex-
pected, everything would have been all
right. but it didn't. I had too much
powder. For a second after l had lit
h fuse there came a muff1ed roar, and
the whole pond in a solid mass, fish
and all, went flying up in the air
tonished: not a few more were very
much frightened. ! was scared to
death. but / never let on to anyone that
l was the person who had blown the
pond off.
How high the pond went / don't
know, hut l do know that for a week
there wasn't n sign of it, and then.
most unexpectedly, out of what APP
peared to be a clear sky there came
h most extraordinary rainstorm YOU
ever saw 1t literally poured down
for two full days. and, what / alone
could understand, with IT came front
and sunfish and minnows. and, most
scow that was recognized as the prop
erty of the owner OF the pond sudden
~ appeared in the sky falling toward
h earth at a fearful rate Of speed.
When ! saw the scow coming | was
more frightened than ever, because 1
was afraid 1t might fall upon and kill
some of our neighbors. Fortunately.
however. this possible disaster was
averted. for 1t came down directly over
h sharp point lightning rod on the
tower of u public library and stuck
there like a piece of paper on a pin.
The rain washed away several acres
Of cultivated farms. but the loss Of
crops and fences and SO forth was
largely reduced by the fish which came
with the storm. One farmer took =
rake and caught 300 pounds of trout.
forty pounds of sunfish, eight turtles
and q minnow in his potato patch in
five minutes. Others were almost as
fortunate, but the damage was suffi-
ciently large to teach me that parents
cannot be too careful about what thew
let their children do on Independence
day
And weren't you ever punished? p,
asked Jack.
NO. indeed said the major. mo
body ever knew that ! did It. because
l never told them-in fact, you are the
only two persons who have ever heard
about it, and you mustn't tell. because
there are still a number OF farmer
about that region who would sue me
for damages in case they knew that
was responsible for the accident