My Boyhood and Youth 



shooting him. I had seen servant girls wringing 

 chicken necks, so with desperate humanity I 

 took the limp unfortunate by the head, swung 

 him around three or four times thinking I was 

 wringing his neck, and then threw him hard on 

 the ground to quench the last possible spark of 

 life and make quick death doubly sure. But to 

 our astonishment the moment he struck the 

 ground he gave a cry of alarm and flew right 

 straight up like a rejoicing lark into the top of 

 the same tree, and perhaps to the same branch 

 he had fallen from, and began to adjust his 

 ruffled feathers, nodding and chirping and look- 

 ing down at us as if wondering what in the bird 

 world we had been doing to him. This of course 

 banished all thought of killing, as far as that 

 revived woodpecker was concerned, no matter 

 how many ears of corn he might spoil, and we all 

 heartily congratulated him on his wonderful, 

 triumphant resurrection from three kinds of 

 death, shooting, neck-wringing, and destruc- 

 tive concussion. I suppose only one pellet had 

 touched him, glancing on his head. 

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