It Was
Rather A Series Of Small Clearings, Running Up Into The Forest, Much
Overgrown With Bushes And Briers, And Not Unromantic.
Cows pastured
there, penetrating through the leafy passages from one opening to
another, and browsing among the bushes.
I was kindly furnished with
a six-quart pail, and told not to be gone long.
Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appearances, I took a
gun. It adds to the manly aspect of a person with a tin pail if he
also carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a partridge;
though how I was to hit him, if he started up instead of standing
still, puzzled me. Many people use a shotgun for partridges. I
prefer the rifle: it makes a clean job of death, and does not
prematurely stuff the bird with globules of lead. The rifle was a
Sharps, carrying a ball cartridge (ten to the pound), - an excellent
weapon belonging to a friend of mine, who had intended, for a good
many years back, to kill a deer with it. He could hit a tree with it
- if the wind did not blow, and the atmosphere was just right, and
the tree was not too far off - nearly every time. Of course, the tree
must have some size. Needless to say that I was at that time no
sportsman. Years ago I killed a robin under the most humiliating
circumstances. The bird was in a low cherry-tree. I loaded a big
shotgun pretty full, crept up under the tree, rested the gun on the
fence, with the muzzle more than ten feet from the bird, shut both
eyes, and pulled the trigger.
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