36 What Birds Have Done With Me 



gun under, bring gun up, shoot ze quick. Thou- 

 san' misses tell how fast each bird go quick. Easy 

 f nuf." 



So far, the old smooth bore had been used as 

 a rifle only, not with fixed ammunition, thank you, 

 but powder from a flask, a piece of muslin for a 

 patch, and bullets run from spoons that his sisters 

 someway lost in setting the table. A half day's 

 work for Culver, hoeing corn, and he had am- 

 munition for wing-shooting that ought to last 

 a week. 



Two of their colts had wandered away and 

 were with a band of neighbors' colts down at 

 Hamilton's Point. The thought of the way they 

 might be suffering touched a tender spot in the 

 small boy's gizzard, and he was almost tearful 

 as he begged his father to allow him to go and 

 salt them. He likely would have wept had his 

 father not given his consent, for if the truth must 

 be known, he could not wait another day to try 

 wing-shooting. The gun was already hidden in 

 a fence corner out near the little woods, for his 

 father had clearly repented of his trade with 

 Adolph, and had shown himself strongly antago- 

 nistic to his son's evident ambition to become a 

 mighty hunter. On one point, he was inflexible, 

 no wild things must be killed in the breeding sea- 

 son, hence the gun in the fence-corner. Indeed, 

 there are few things as rare as a day in June, 



