184 THE BOY 



II. THE BOY AND THE GUN 



THE boy, bless his heart, is closer to Nature than 

 the man. He is a savage in civilized attire; he steals 

 and lies without a blush of shame, persecutes and 

 domineers, and delights in noise and destruction, 

 and will do and dare anything to satisfy his un- 

 tamed cravings. To make an uproar and kill 

 something nothing quite so well serves him as 

 gunpowder, and for its employment nothing 

 serves him so well as the gun. 



Boys have grown particular of these later years, 

 as have the grown-up savages on the frontier, and 

 must have breech-loaders and "ca'tridges"; but 

 when we graybeards were boys any tube of iron 

 with a lock and stock was a prize. No matter how 

 it missed fire, kicked or scattered, when it did go 

 off you felt it as well as heard it, and it would 

 sometimes kill a chipmunk or a robin, and so 

 frighten a woodchuck that after one shotted salute 

 from it he would keep his hole for half a day. What 

 a big Injun was the boy who owned or had bor- 

 rowed such a gun, and how all the other boys 

 gathered about him to watch the mysterious proc- 

 ess of loading. What a wise fellow was this to 

 know that he must first put in the powder, and how 

 much of it, and on top of it a wad of tow or wasp- 

 nest or newspaper, and then the death-dealing 

 pellets of precious shot poured out of a vial, and 



