THE OLD MUZZLE-LOADING RIFLE. 73 



would pull the trigger. The trigger was a hair trigger, 

 and the point was to get the aim accurate at some 

 familiar object of the barnyard or some tree in the 

 woods, and then pull at once, while on the level. But 

 our powder was smokeless, and our bullets were never 

 dug out of the trees we shot into. Yet it is curious 

 that there were few things in the immediate vicinity 

 of the old homestead that escaped being killed or 

 stricken down by our deadly aim. We would deliber- 

 ately point at the best rooster on the farm and fire, 

 and then coolly say, as the innocent fowl kept on peck- 

 ing, "There, he 's done for." I have even known us 

 to fire at the horses or the pigs and cattle, and occa- 

 sionally a buggy or an unoffending farm wagon on the 

 turnpike beyond was the object of our marksmanship. 

 "Yes, I think I hit him," we would say. We never 

 missed with that old gun. It was a heavy old gun, 

 and it took all our strength in younger days, and not 

 much less in maturer age, to lift it to a level and main- 

 tain it there. Generally we sought a rest against a 

 porch pillar or held it muzzle-upward to the sky, so 

 that the weight came upon our shoulders, and then 

 proved experts with swallows and buzzards. 



The old muzzle-loader, with its cap and ball, has 

 had its day. Like the flint-lock, it is now but a relic, 

 and has been replaced by the better rapid-firing and 

 repeating breech-loading guns of all sorts. But the 

 thought of it lingers lovingly with many people, for it 

 was the association of their childhood, and they first 

 learned the art of "drawing a bead" from its long, 

 octagonal barrel and good sights. It brings back to 



