CHAPTER VI.

GUNPOWDER.

When Rollo and James went home it was nearly tea-time, and they found Jonas just coming from the pasture. They told him of the ill success of their experiment in charcoal-making, with countenances expressive of great disappointment and chagrin.

“It is no matter,” said Jonas; “you have had your afternoon’s amusement, and that’s all you want, isn’t it?”

“No, indeed,” said Rollo; “by no means.”

“Why, what else do you want?” asked Jonas.

“Why, we want some gunpowder,” said James. “We are going to make our charcoal into gunpowder.”

“You needn’t have made a charcoal bed for that,” said Jonas. “You can get all the charcoal you want to make gunpowder with, out of the kitchen fire.”

“The kitchen fire!” said Rollo.

“Yes,” replied Jonas. “You can pick up plenty of little black coals in the corners.”

“Will they do?” asked James.

“Yes,” said Jonas; “why not?”

“I didn’t know that they were charcoal,” rejoined James.

“Yes,” said Jonas.

“And will you help us make our gunpowder?” asked Rollo.

“Why, it is rather a dangerous business,” said Jonas.

“Why, we will be very careful, you know, Jonas, not to get blown up,” said Rollo.

“O, I’m not afraid of getting blown up with any gunpowder you can make. That wasn’t the kind of danger I was thinking of.”

“What danger then?” said Rollo.

“Why, danger of getting the sulphur on your clothes, and smutting your face with the charcoal.”

“Why, Jonas,” replied Rollo, “if we get the sulphur on our clothes, we will brush it off again; and, as to the smutting, we won’t touch the charcoal to our faces.”

“It is very difficult,” replied Jonas, “to have any thing to do with charcoal, without getting blacked with it. You can hardly look at it without crocking your face.”

“O Jonas,” said James, “_I_ could, I know.”

“Then, besides,” continued Jonas, “you can’t brush the sulphur off your clothes. If you once get it on, some of it will stay, and your clothes will always smell of sulphur whenever you come near a fire. I don’t think that your mother would be willing that you should have any thing to do with sulphur and charcoal.”

“I mean to ask her,” said Rollo.

Rollo went in to ask his mother, but he found that tea was ready, and so he and James went in and took their places at the tea-table. When the boys proposed their plan of making gunpowder, they found Rollo’s mother, as Jonas had supposed, quite averse to any such operations. However, when his father came in and heard their conversation on the subject, he said that he would take charge of the business, and then his mother would have no objection.

“Well, sir,” said Rollo, “I’m glad of that; for perhaps Jonas wouldn’t know how to make it.”

“He can prepare the materials, at any rate,” said his father. “So, after tea, you may go out and ask him to get three tea-cups, and to put about three or four tablespoonfuls of sulphur in one, and of saltpetre in another, and charcoal in another. Only the saltpetre and the charcoal must be pulverized.”

“Pulverized?” said Rollo; “what do you mean by that?”

“Why, powdered,—that is, pounded up very fine.”

“How shall he pound them?” said Rollo.

“In the iron mortar,” said his mother. “Dorothy will give it to him.”

“And when they are all ready,” continued Rollo’s father, “come and tell me.”

Accordingly, immediately after tea, Rollo and James went out to give Jonas the directions about preparing the materials. Dorothy gave Jonas the mortar. She also brought out three tea-cups, and put them upon the kitchen table. Jonas picked up from the corner of the fireplace a few small coals, and put them into the mortar and then, took up the pestle.

“O, more,” said Rollo; “we want more than that.”

“Yes,” said Jonas; “but we must take a little at a time.”

“Why?” asked Rollo.

“Because,” replied Jonas, “if I put much into the mortar at once, I can’t make it fine. I must only have a little, and then the pestle and the bottom of the mortar come close together, and so it grinds up the smallest pieces.”

When Jonas had pounded up the charcoal which he had put in at first, he poured the black powder out into one of the tea-cups, and then put in more charcoal, which he powdered as before. He proceeded in this way until he had filled one of the tea-cups nearly half full. He then washed out the mortar, and put it down to the fire to dry. Then he took a glass jar, which Dorothy had brought him from the closet, and which was nearly full of a substance which looked like salt, and poured some of it into the mortar.

“Is that the saltpetre?” said Rollo.

“Yes,” replied Jonas.

“It looks like salt,” said Rollo.

“Yes,” rejoined Jonas, “and tastes a little like salt.”

Rollo and James both wanted to taste a little of the saltpetre, and they