A POOR MARKSMAN. 171 



new tasks for his successors to perform. Gew- 

 gaws and ornaments of many kinds, luxuries of 

 the millionaires, coveted by the poor and adding 

 to their daily discontent, these do the brain of 

 man each year conceive and fashion. Toiling 

 and sweating, working in the hot impure air and 

 surrounded by the din and stink of great cities, 

 men and women, girls and boys, pass the years 

 in their production, their only reward sufficient 

 food and shelter to keep the life blood flowing. 



Yes, out there the world wags on, and I, with 

 nature all about me, wished years ago to wag 

 with it, to put my shoulder to the city wheel 

 and see it turn, to burn my life 's fuel that other 

 men might prosper. Enough of that I've had. 

 Long may, and doubtless long will, the world 

 wag on without me. My turn at the wheel has 

 ended. Content am I to sit in the shade and 

 practice shooting at a marmot's head. 



Practice is a good word. It is perhaps tough 

 on the ground-hogs but fun for me. One far 

 over on the other side of the clover patch I 

 bowled over, but up he scrambled and away he 

 scurried. At the head of the young one, which 

 had been a-calling, have I shot five times. Each 

 time has he dropped back into the burrow, ap- 

 parently unharmed. A little high, a little low, 

 a little to the right, a little to the left, the flecks 

 of dust would show. Practice it is, but the Gods 

 of chance will perhaps soon be with me and 



