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GATHERING BIRDS’ EGGS IN FLORIDA 161 
“What kind of a gun do you shoot?” I asked. 
“IT shoot a good old flintlock, always have since I was 
big enough to tote it. My son has danged new-fangled 
notions. He’s young and kind of flighty like and had 
his flintlock altered over to shoot caps. Dang caps! 
I say, they’re pesky expensive and always getting lost. 
I like a gun with a flint in it, then she’s always ready 
to shoot without any fuss.”’ 
‘“‘Do you like your son’s gun better than mine?”’ I 
asked. 
‘‘Well! now, I don’t know as I like it better, but his 
gun is a darned sight safer than yours is. What do you 
say to trying all three shooting at a mark?”’ 
We placed the mark on a big tree forty yards away. 
They said they rarely shot at deer over that distance. 
The flintlock, loaded with ball and three buckshot, 
went off ‘‘fizz-bang,’’ but the old boy’s bullet hit the 
target plumb center, the buckshot in a triangle around 
it. I shot three or four shots around the top edge. 
Then son tried his ‘‘new-fangled cap gun”’ and also 
made a fine bull’s-eye. While father and son only shot 
once each, both kept encouraging me to continue shoot- 
ing, rushing to the target after each shot and coming 
back much excited at the fine work my rifle was doing. 
I shot a dozen rounds, hitting the bull’s-eye regularly 
towards the last, and then called a halt as supper was 
ready. 
The old boy told a lot of stories after supper, all per-. 
sonal narratives. The Civil War was only four years 
back and most of the stories were about conscription. 
He and his son, a man of thirty-five, ‘‘laid out,’’ as he 
called it, for two years to avoid being sent to the war. 
Once when hiding in the bush, the provost marshal and 
two soldiers rode by within ten feet of where the old boy; 
It 
