34 What Birds Have Done With Me 



He heard him say, "Ze boy shoot ze gun good; 

 good gun make ze good man. No draw chip with 

 ze gun, trade, draw ze chip with ze wagon." 



The small boy let no grass grow under his feet 

 getting down stairs, but before he got there, the 

 trade had been made. Adolph had traded his 

 birth-right for the miserable, worn-out, old demo- 

 crat wagon. Shrieking after Adolph that he could 

 shoot it whenever he wanted to, when his father 

 handed him the gun, he hugged it to his breast 

 and made for his room literally with a heart too 

 full for utterance. Driving a couple of nails in 

 the wall at the foot of his bed, he hung the gun 

 where he could see it the last thing at night and 

 the first thing in the morning, and it strangely sup- 

 plemented the influence of "Anderson's Travels 

 in Africa." Like a witch on a broom-stick, the 

 small boy rode that gun through the darkest cor- 

 ners of the Dark Continent, and became a killer 

 compared to whom Samson with his ass's jaw- 

 bone was superseded. In his dreams, he shot up 

 the world and all things therein, and like Alex- 

 ander, wept that there were no more worlds to 

 shoot up. The dawn's first flush and the last red 

 banner in the evening sky, stood as marking the 

 place where rivers of blood flowed. It was a lucky 

 thing that the owner of the "Green Book," "An- 

 derson's Travels in Africa," did not come to claim 

 it, especially had he not been willing to take a 



