MY PET WOOD THKUSHES. 
205 
buggy, attended bj a bright mulatto boy, bound for tlie out- 
skirts of the city — I with gun in hand, and my wife with a 
most provoking look of archness upon her child-like face. I 
was going forth slaying and to slay, and vowed that I had 
as soon kill a Bird of Paradise as a mouse, when the interests 
of science required it, and persisted' — ^like the boy whistling 
in the dark — in convincing her that I should certainly shoot 
for her the finest specimen of a mocking bird that we could 
find. Indeed, for the purpose of re-assuring her smiling in- 
credulity, I went on to remind her that she had seen me per- 
form miracles with the rifle — she had known me even to 
place six bullets in successive shots upon the space of my 
thumb nail — which I thrust forward to show her was not a 
very large one ! " Oh yes !" — she knew I was " a good rifle 
shot — a wonderful rifle shot, if I insisted upon it — ^but shoot- 
ing at buffalo, deer, or even Camanches, was not^ strictly 
speaking, shooting at mocking birds!" 
" Nonsense ! If a man knows how to hit one thing, he 
knows how to hit another !" 
I felt somehow funny, I must confess, at this persistent du- 
biousness. It could not be that she thought that because I 
had become accustomed to shooting at large objects, that 
therefore I should miss the small ones as a matter of course. 
What could the woman be driving at ? — why, I could shoot 
a bird on the wing a great deal easier with the shot-gun, than 
a deer on the run with the rifle, which requires you, in order 
to bring him down, to place a single ball in a much smaller 
space than even the snipe would cover with its wing on its 
flight. She cannot mean that I am not a good marksman, 
for that she knows I am ! 
Hah ! there is a mocking bird, well known in all this re- 
gion as a magnificent singer. See him bounding up from 
the top of that pear tree inside the garden. The people will 
all curse me, I know, for slaying the angel of song in their 
neighborhood ; but then I hope to make peace with them in 
