2 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan. 7, 1892. 



STORIE: 



OF 



DAYS. > 



* - 



CLEANING THE OLD GUN. 



WELL, the cleaning of the old gun must not be put 

 off longer. I am ashamed when I even try to 

 recall the length of time she has borne this charge in her 

 vitals. Counting the months backward to the happy day 

 when my dear friend Jack, of Michigan, went fox hunt- 

 ing with me, they mount up twelve, to twenty-foitr, yea, 

 and seven more, an army of ghosts that arise from their 

 calendared tombs and condemn me for this neglect of my 

 first loved gun. 



She, of all the guns my youthful eyes beheld, was the 

 first who enchanted me; she, to my bashful touch, first 

 responded with a roar of musical thunder and a kick that 

 I was proud to receive, when I was permitted to fire her 

 at a mark. 



Her I first loaded with trembling hands, doubtful when 

 the heroic feat was accomplished whether powder or 

 shot were uppermost, or the proper wad of tow between 

 them or underneath them. 



It is humiliating, even now, that five and forty years 

 have passed, to confess how was presently given proof 

 Of skillful loading by later unskillful handling. 



The thin copper cap, bright as a new cent, and worth 

 more to me, was set upon the nipple, the striker drawn 

 backward, the trigger pulled to ease it down to its proper 

 place, for hammer down was the rule of safety in those 

 days, and the half-cock arrangement was thought to be 

 a useless survival of flintlock times, in whose declining 

 years this old gun was born in a London gunshop. My 

 nervous thumb slipped, down fell the hammer, the house, 

 wa ? shaken with the discharge, the shot was driven like 

 a bnllet through the panel of the kitchen door and spat- 

 tered upon the ceiling of the hall. 



Serene amid the uproar and its after hush, my grand- 

 father turned from the window where he stood dreaming 

 an old man's dream of the past, and I believe he would 

 have been little moved if the shot had scattered in his 

 silver locks. 



"What is thee trying to do?" was all he asked, and I 

 had no answer nor he any reproach. He was one of 

 those rare old men who remember that they were once 

 boys, and can forgive as they desired to be forgiven. 



I cannot remember how many weary days or weeks or 

 months went by before I dared to take this gun in hand 

 again. Heaven knows they were long enough to count 

 as years go now, when I wait and wait for what will 

 never come, 



But still the old gun waits its cleaning. No wonder 

 that one grown accustomed to the easily and readily ap- 

 parent cleaning of the breechloader, dreads attacking the 

 cavernous depths of the muzzleloader. How shall he 

 know when he has pumped them with cold water, 

 scalded them with hot, and wiped them with the last 

 rag, that those hidden recesses are not entertaining rust 

 that doth corrupt? Only the cunning hand of the gun- 

 smith would reveal to them now and then the condition 

 of that dark interior. Otherwise we could only hope for 

 the best or fear the worst. 



Come down, old gun, from the hooks whereon in these 

 idle hours thou hast hung since the days I first knew there 

 were guns and began to covet their use and possession. 



Many changes and much rough usage she has under- 

 gone since then when her igniting force slept in the cool 

 flint of her comely lock, and its flash awakened fire and 

 thunder that burst from her three feet and six inches of 

 octagonal and round barrel of seventeen guage. Longer 

 ago than I can remember her lock was clumsily changed 

 to the incoming percussion fashion by Seaver, of Ver- 

 gennes, a gunsmith who scoffed at the idea of barrels 

 ever being twisted or made in any way but by longitudi- 

 nal welding of the tube. 



How distinctly I remember the old man and his low- 

 roofed shop, him, spectacled and so bent with years that 

 he need not stoop to his work, filing a stiff sear spring 

 while he gossipped of his townsmen, one of whom was 

 "jest a-dyin' of reg'lar oF fashioned rum consumption, 

 poor oF creetur." The grimy walls of his den were 

 arrayed with guns of all sorts, repaired and awaiting re- 

 pairs, and bunches of new steel traps, of which he was a 

 famous maker in those days when the Newhouse trap was 

 unknown and nine dollars a dozen was the regular price 

 of good hand-made muskrat trap*. I doubt not he was 

 tinkering the militia men's muskets, perhaps in this same 

 shop, in the martial days of the last war with England, 

 when all the Champlain valley was alert for British in- 

 vasion, and McDonough's fleet was threatened with 

 blockade or destruction where it lay at the Buttonwoods 

 in Otter Creek. 



Well.it was not making or mending guns that I set 

 about, but the cleaning of this one, and still she waits my 

 tardy hand. Out with the rusty charge. Mercy how she 

 kick?, and how a gun always kicks more when fired at a 

 target than at g^nie, as if she resented such futile use. 

 But the fact is, unless one's cheek and shoulder are butted 

 unmercifully one never notices a kick in the excitement 

 of game shooting, while in cold blooded target shooting 

 he feels the slightest recoil, and may sometimes detect 

 hims >lf shutting both eyes in expectation of it as he pulls 

 the trigger. 



$0Wj ramrod and key are drawn, the barrel unhooked, 

 the breech immersed in a half pailful of cold water, 

 which with frequent changes is pumped through the 

 barrels with a swab of tow or cloth on the cleaning rod, 

 till water and swab show no suspicion of filth. Then 

 boiling water is poured into the muzzle till the barrel is 

 too hot to hold in the naked hand, then drained muzzle 

 down a few moments, and wiped with clean swabs, 

 changed again and again. The first comes forth wet and 

 red with rust that even so quickly has formed, the next 

 stained with it but only moist, and by and by, after arm- 

 tiring friction, the swab reappears at the muzzle as clean 

 and dry as when it entered, and withal quite warm. 

 Now an internal and external touch of oil, and the work 

 is done conformably to the instructions of Frank For- 

 rester in his "Manual for Young Sportsmen." Happy is 

 it for you who now inherit the title and have entered the 

 field since the general introduction of breechloaders that 

 his prediction concerning the practicability of such arms 

 was not fulfilled, and that you are spared the tedious 

 and uncertain labor of cleaning muzzleloading shot- 

 guns. 



If the old gun does not look as good as new now that 

 she is made cleanly, she is at least seemly, and I would 

 not if I coidd obliterate the scratches and bruises that 

 mark stock and barrel, for they are reminders of half- 

 forgotten incidents, and bring up visions of happy days 

 of unreturning youth. 



Not one of us graybeards but looks backward with 

 longing to those care-free days, but if we could recall one 

 of them arid live it again would it be wise to do so? 

 Would not the heaviness of these present, inevitable days 

 be increased and made less bearable by this brief lighten- 

 ing of the burden? 



Seen through the mists of intervening years, how long 

 and bright and full of unmixed happiness they appear to 

 our regretful eyes, yet they were no better to us then 

 than these are now — never quite perfect, always lacking 

 something that was to come by and by, when we would 

 be men and the world our oyster. Though they have 

 drifted far away into the past, we have lived them and 

 they are still ours to fondly love and remember. Then 

 why should we regret them? 



Ah, why? But still we do. Who can ever forget and 

 not wish to feel again what he never can, the exalted 

 thrill of his first successful shot at any kind of game. 



How the touch of this old gun with which the feat was 

 accomplished, brings to mind the killing of my firstsquir- 

 rel, brought down from the top of a tall hickory with a 

 ball that unknown to me had been rammed atop of the 

 powder for larger game. I remember, too, the scolding I 

 got for shooting such a charge toward the house, a quarter 

 of a mile away. But I was so proud of the feat that a 

 scolding was nothing, only that it seemed to me I 

 deserved rather a little praise for having knocked off a 

 squirrel's head with a single ball from a smooth bore. 



So comes back the memory of my first partridge, the 

 indescribable aroma of the October woods, lumnious with 

 gorgeous tints, the dusky form skulking through the 

 undergrowth, the instantaneous aim, the sullen roar that 

 broke the stillness of the woods, the moment so full of 

 hope and heart-sickening uncertainty till the fluttering 

 bird was seen and pounced upon and gloated over. I am 

 no more ashamed now than I was then that he was shot 

 on the ground, and hold that no man need be more 

 ashamed of fairly stalking a ruffed grouse than a deer. 

 Both feats call for wariness and woodcraft, though the 

 last requires the more, while shooting grouse from a tree 

 to which they have been put by a yelping dog needs but 

 a keen eye and a target-shot aim. 



With .us, there were no ruffed grouse then nor wing 

 shooting— only "patridges," and sitting or running shots, 

 No one whom we knew ever shot birds on the wing but 

 Pierpoint, of Vergennes, who made great bags of ducks 

 and woodcock on Great and Little Otter creeks and their 

 borders, But that was something that only a lawyer 

 could achieve and boys only dream of as a possibility of 

 the future, that might bring all things. 



The result of my first attempt at wing-shooting sur- 

 prised me as much as the bird I fired at, a pigeon that 

 had repeatedly flown from one to the other of the barns, 

 whereon I was trying to get a pot shot at him. At last, 

 as he flew across me, I let fly at him in sheer desperation, 

 and down he slanted in a Ions: curve from his straight 

 arrowy flight, stone dead when he struck the earth. 

 From that day forth I was always "pulling trigger" on 

 flying birds, oftener wasting than giving good account of 

 precious ammunition; but in the beginning I had ac- 

 quired the knack of aiming quickly audit was sometimes 

 a bird and not I who got the worst of it in my frequent 

 fusilades. 



This old gun gave me my first woodcock who went 

 whistling out of the tasseled border of the cornfield seen 

 for a flash, then whistling out of sight behind the top of a 

 young apple tree, through which I blazed away in the 

 direction of his flight. Impressed with a belief in his 

 fall, I searched with a faith that was well rewarded when 

 I found him a few rods further on belly up among the 

 rank aftermath. Oh, long-past golden day of September, 

 has thy like ever since shone on happier or prouder boy? 



This open confession compels the admission that for all 

 the small thunder I have let loose from this and other 

 guns in swamp and alder thicket, a few figures would 

 compass the score of woodcock brought to pocket between 

 that first and the last that I shall ever shoot; but those I 

 so possessed I was proud of and duly thankful for. They 

 must be growing scarce here, for In the last half dozen 

 years of my shooting, which ended four years ago, I did 

 not flush many birds in all the good summer and fall cover 

 that I beat. Too many guns and too little cover have 

 almost accomplished the downfall of his goodly race. 



It was the great ambition of my generation of boys to 

 shoot ducks. How many weary days have I haunted the 

 banks of Little Otter and the East Slang, unsuccessful 

 but still hopeful of a shot, and how my heart sickened 

 when, after a long crawl through the unheeded thistles 

 of a creekside pasture, the grand opportunity lay before 

 me, a huddled flock within short range. The deadly aim 

 was assured, the trigger pulled and— the gun missed fire. 

 With a torrent of epithets I reviled thee, though most in- 

 nocent weapon, for the fault of some Gallic manufacturer 

 of percussion caps. 



Who that knew them does not remember with bitter- 

 ness of spirit those little cups of copper foil shedding 

 unreluctantly their thin scale of fulminating powder as 

 lifeless as the paper box that inclosed them, and labeled 

 with effrontery more brazen than themselves "Qualite 

 Superieur" and the maker's initials blazoned in large 

 capitals "G. D.," which gave to the vexed Anglo- Sas on 

 a hint of supplement in plain, if profane, English. Did 

 we not arise and call blessed Ely and Cox and others of 

 our own blood who gave us honest caps, vital with a spark 

 that the hammer's strike always awoke? 



Never a duck did I get till one October afternoon Jule 

 Dop paddled me from Sile Baily's landing to "Pint Judy 

 Pint" in the East Slang. 



As well defined as then, open before me between their 

 pale of brown and yellow sedge and rice, the blue black 

 curves and reaches of quiet water, brightened here and 

 there with the reflected glory of scarlet water maples, 

 glints of sunshine and double of silver cloud. Were we 

 moving, or were shores, trees and marsh filing past us? 

 The sough of the breeze made them noisier than the 

 progress of the boat, most apparent by the ripples that 

 stirred rush and lilypad far astern. 



Forty years and more have flown since that incompara- 

 ble wielder of the paddle drifted into the mystery of the 

 unknown. Poor vagabond, wherever he sleep in his un- 

 marked grave, peace to him, and eternally the rest which 

 in his brief life he ever deeired. 



Silently we rounded the bend below the reed bog and 

 then, where the channel hugs the south shore of Horse 

 Pasture Point, up sprang a great dusky duck with a pro- 

 digious flutter of wings and a raucous quack of alarm 

 that was cut short in mid-utterance by my sudden shot. 

 Down she came with a resounding splash that drove a 

 shower of glittering drops above the rice tops and sent 

 circling wavelets out to greet us. If her weight and 

 mine bad been what they seemed to me as I lifted her 

 from the water the voyage of that old scow would have 

 ended then and there with a surging plunge to the oozy 

 bottom. 



The horde of ducks that were wont to congregate in 

 those marshes then had that day found business or pleas- 

 ure elsewhere, for we saw but one other; as we rounded 

 the broad marsh that westwardly borders Horse Pasture 

 Point and drew near the mouth of the E ist Slang, up rose, 

 a long gunshot off, with a needless tumult of voice and 

 pinion, and flew straight away. The long barrel was 

 trained on her and the trigger pulled just as Jule pro- 

 tested under breath, "Too far." But down she plunged 

 headlong into the quivering sedges, and never in my life 

 was I prouder than ween Jule's impressive lips gave me 

 the commendation, "By gosh, you're a cuss to shoot," 

 though in my heart I knew it was but a lucky chance 

 that called it forth. 



Further than this my shot was not rewarded, for an 

 hour's search failed to disclose her in that unmarked ex- 

 panse of sedges, weed and rushes, and my second duck 

 was never but for a brief moment displayed as a trophy 

 but went to the nourishment of some prowling mink or 

 hungry hawk. 



Fortune favored me that day not only in what she 

 gave, but in withholding an opportunity of spoiling my 

 record. 



As soon as the ice was out of the East Slang the flooded 

 marshes swarmed with muskrats, for whose sleek brown 

 coats, worth fifteen cents apiece, we boys hungered, 

 envying the trappers who took more in a night than we 

 in a season. How persistently we patrolled the low 

 shores in quest of a muskrat swimming within range, or 

 resting on a half submerged log. Or, lying in ambush, 

 we strove to lure the amorous voyagers to death by sim- 

 ulating their mating call, and happy were we if in a day 

 our frequent shots gained us one prize. 



Then, too, in those first days of open water thp spawn- 

 ing pickerel were playing and now and then a lucky shot 

 paralyzed one, perhaps two or three, and in the roil our 

 eager eyes would discover the gleam of shining white 

 bellies upturned to incite us to a splashing scramble for 

 our prey. I confess that all this was unsportsmanlike, 

 but it was fun, and whoever has hunted muskrats or shot 

 pickerel cannot deny that skill cannot be lacking in the 

 successful pursuit of the one pastime nor that excitement 

 attends the other. 



John Wadso, late of St. Francis, but now with his 

 dusky fathers in the happy hunting grounds, told me 

 that a British officer whom he accompanied on a moose 

 hunt, became so enthusiastic over the (-port of shooting 

 muskrats with his rifle that he forgot the real object of 

 his trip, and so devoted himself to this accidental one 

 that he scared every moose out of sight and range. Fur- 

 thermore in defense of the other practice there are real 

 sportsmen who are not above pickerel shooting when the 

 law does not prohibit it, 



How distinctly lies before me the scene of those 

 small adventures of youth, as if not forty years, but 

 fewer days, linked the past to this present youth to crab- 

 bed age. 



The broad water rippled by the wind, flashing in the 

 sun and beating with rapid pulse against the rustling 

 drift of dead weeds, the crinkled reflection of tree and 

 shore, and flash of the starling's wings, an angler casting 

 an early worm to the unready bullheads, a pickerel 

 shooter stalking heron like along a distant shore, a trap- 

 per poling his cranky skiff along his marshy round, now 

 halting to inspect a trap or gather its lifeless prey, or 



