Sept. 9, 1899.] 
- ..I— 
S06 
last service of the rifle. The barrel was bent, the stock 
broken past mending, so that it was only a question 
111" a new gun of some sort. 
Arguing the question with himself, his wife the au- 
dience, he said: *"If I got tu be sech a blunderin' oV 
•immbskull I can'fgit a bead on a bear's head three rod 
off, I better git me su'thin' I can shoot buckshot in — 
a' ol' Queen's arm or a 'paseraro,' mebby! By the Lord 
Harry, she wa'n't three rod, an' a comin' stret at me! 
But she was a-bobbin' up an' down, ju' like a sawmill 
gate. It don't signify, though, I'd ort tu ha' fetched her. 
Fact on't is, I guess I can't shoot a rifle no more — don't 
practyce none. Guess I'll git me a smooth-bore — it'll 
be handy for pigins, an' shoot a ball well 'nough for 
what bear an' deer an' varmints I run on tu naower- 
days. If the* was anj-- sech thing as fixin' up ol' 'Sartin 
Death' I wouldn't think o' nothin' else, but she's past 
prayin' for," he siged ruefully, regarding the bent barrel, 
the broken lock and splintered stock. 
The result was that after fully setting forth the case 
of each weapon he made a pilgrimage to the shop of 
Thomas Hill in Charlotta, the most famous gunsmith 
of the region, and after long consultation with that 
cunning craftsman, he ordered the building of a 16- 
gauge smooth-bore, with four-foot barrel, brass mount- 
ings, curled maple stock of rifle pattern, with patch box. 
He awaited the appointed time of completion with the 
degree of patience that usually attends the gun lover 
while he awaits possession of a new weapon, and know- 
ing the value of a craftsman's promise, added a week's 
grace therto. 
Then he haltered the two-year-old heifer that was 
to be the price, trade being then chiefly conducted by 
barter, and set forth on foot, leading the heifer. 
The gun proved to be all that was promised and more 
than was expected. It was a beauty, according to the 
fashion of the day; It made a target almost as good as 
a rifle at twenty rods, and patterns with both coarse 
and fine shot that were all that could be desired. Josiah 
Hill was pleased enough with the gun to give it un- 
grudged praise, and proud to have so skillful and honest 
a workman as its maker for a namesake. So treading 
more lightly with this easiest of burdens on his shoulders 
he set forth on his homeward journey, now making a 
target of a white patch on a beech trunk, now of an 
Bnwary crow, now of a pigeon just arrived from so far 
south that it had green wild grapes in its crop, while in 
Danvis woods the vines were but just in bloom. 
He was at the beginning of the last mile, when he 
brought down one of these travelers from afar, and de- 
bating a moment whether he should reload with shot or 
ball decided on the latter, so that he might as soon as he 
reached home show Ruby how well the new smooth-bore 
could fill the place of the rifle. As he was returning 
the ramrod to its pipes, his roving eyes caught the lithe 
.movement of some animal where the next turn of the 
road closed the forest-walled vista. His first thoughts 
were that it was a deer, and that it was out of season. 
Then he saw that, thought it was of the color, it was 
not of the forlii of a deer. It was a panther sneaking 
along at a loose-jointed, cat-like trot, halting now and 
then to look backward with intent, alert eagerness; then 
resuming its slouching advance. 
Josiah brought the gun to his shoulder, but could 
not find a certain aim at the distance, though that was 
not more than twenty rods. So he waited, with his head 
a little raised and gun muzzle lowered, for the animal 
to come within closer range. At fifteen rods it halted and 
looked backward again, and then as Josiah aimed at the 
curved side just behind the shoulder, it sprang lightly to 
the roadside, faced about, and swiftly climbed the trunk 
of a great maple to the first large limb that stretched out 
above the road, upon which it crouched, eagerly watch- 
ing in the direction from which it had come. 
A-layin' for suthin' — one o' my idgit y'erlin's, mebby," 
Josiah whispered to himself, the eye and aim following 
every movement, only diverted for an occasional quick 
glance down the road. The last of these revealed a 
glimpse of a checkered blue and white sunbonnet and 
the flutter of a brown homespun gown, and then Ruby 
appeared in full view, picking her way along the edge of 
a muddy road, not 30yds. beyond the tree where 
the panther crouched, watching her with cruel, eager 
eyes — ears pricked, the end of the tail twitching 
nervously, and hinder paws nestling under the belly 
for the leap. 
"Ruby! Ruby! Stand still where you be, for God's 
sake!" he cried out in a sharp, strained voice that com- 
pelled her to stand stock still before she comprehended 
whose it was or whence it came. 
The panther turned the glare of its yellow eyes full 
upon him at the sound; the long barrel trembled a little 
as it was brought to an aim; then became steady a,s a 
rock under the strain of the tense muscle; and obedient 
to the flash of priming spat out its shaft of fire. A yell 
of pain and rage shot through the boom of the report 
-and echo as the panther, pierced through the heart, 
lurched aimlessly from its perch and came down a-sprawl 
and half lifeless midway between Josiah and his wife. 
Still calm and collected, he began reloading as he 
stepped forward a pace, closely watching the great cat 
blindly biting and clawing tlie earth, and writhing and 
rebounding in all the lithe contortions of feline death 
throes. The last snarling gasp went out, the muscular 
limbs stiffened, quivered and relaxed, but he did not 
go nearer the motionless tawny form until his piece was 
reloaded. Then, with thumb on the cock and finger on 
the trigger, he advanced and stirred it with his foot. 
Not a muscle gave a responsive twitch, and he went 
over to Ruby sitting in a dumb daze, clutching the 
leaves with rigid hands, never moving until, when she 
saw her husband so near the terrible beast, she made 
an involuntary warning gesture. 
"Thank the good Lord, Ruby!" he cried, all of a 
tremble now, and his voice shaking as he knelt down 
beside her; and she, with her head on his shoulder, fell 
to weeping. < 
"I do' know wbat made me, bat I consaited you d be 
a-comin', an' I was a-comln aout tu meet you." 
"An' I was a-comin' jest in the nick o' time, an' blessed 
be this gun. for she saved ye. We'll call her 'Deliver- 
ance.' Ju' look what a beauty she be! There, don't 
je cry ontu her— salty tears '11 rust her." 
The smooth-bore, having done such saving service, 
was ever after a prime favorite, and a weapon of great 
renown in the township. Her owner achieved a wider 
fame as an expert marksman, woodsman and hunter. 
He was famous as the slayer of three panthers, and 
more deer fell to his gun than to any other. Many 
wolves and bears he trapped and shot, and as these 
larger animals became scarce he got at great pains a 
hound of Peleg Sunderland's noted breed, a gaunt blue- 
mottled dog, most melodious and far-sounding of tongue, 
and whose face grew more serious year by year with 
pondering on the wiles of the cunning fox. 
Josiah Hill did not neglect husbandry for sport, and 
never became a shiftless hunter, good for nothing in 
aught else. Out of pi'imeval roughness he wrought 
smooth fields, his well-tended crops were bountiful, his 
flocks and herds throve. No house was better provided 
nor more neatly kept than his, nor resounded more 
constantly with the musical droning of the great wheel 
and the livelier whir and beat of the flax wheel. 
Neighboring homsteads drew closer around his own; 
those of Elisha Peggs, the shoemaker; the Levels, the 
Goves, the Puringtons, the Bordens, and Briggses; the 
staid Quaker folk, the Bartletts — to all of whim he was 
a kind neighbor, helpful in sickness and the many priva- 
tions of pioneer life; rough-tongued, but soft-hearted. 
When Timothy Lovel fell sick of a fever it was Josiah 
Hifl who rallied all the neighbors within two miles to do 
the sick man's haying, and Timothy, worried almost to 
death's door by the thought of his unfinished work, was 
made happy and set on the road to health, when told 
that it was all done, the log barn full of hay and five good 
stacks in the meadow. Every one had a logging-bee 
when the felled trees were ready for piling, but Josiah 
was first at all, organizing the work and keeping all 
hands at it till it was finished, before the inevitable black 
bottle went its rounds, oftener than necessary, and sky- 
larking and practical joking began too soon. 
Once when early in the day Jerry Morrison was over- 
come in too frequent bouts with this sable antagonist 
and was laid behind a log heap to recover, some of the 
jokers of the company rubbed his milk-white oxen, the 
pride of his heart, as black as jet with smut from the 
charred logs. In due time nature's great restorer got 
Jerry upon his unsteady legs, and he meandered home, 
his oxen none the less tractable for their outward meta- 
morphose. 
"Say, Betsey, look a-here!" he called to his wife, as he 
came to an unsteady halt before his own door and 
brought his oxen to a stand with a "Whoa, Snowball! 
Whoa, Silver! Back, ish! If this 'ere's me, someb'dy 
or 'nother's got my oxen. If it haint me, where in 
thunder be I gone tu?" 
In the October evenings every farm had its husking 
bee, an industrial merrymaking in high favor with the 
young folks and matchmaking mothers. The uncertain 
light sprinkled from the tin lantern, the deep shadows, 
the continual rustle of the corn leaves and husks were 
great aids tq the bashful wooers. 
When the young orchards came into bearing, paring 
bees became as common and as popular entertainments — 
a way of making work light with many hands. 
Quiltings were more the affairs of matrons and maids, 
but the men were in demand when the "quilt was shaken," 
and dancing was in order. In winter there were spelling 
schools in the log schoolhouse that Josiah had been in- 
strumental in building, and even taught school in one 
winter when no one else could be found better fitted for 
the place. In his youth he had learned to read and write, 
and had ciphered to the Rule of Three in the district 
school of his old Connecticut home, thereby being qualified 
to lead or drive the youth of Danvis one winter's 
journey in the path of learning. The schoolhouse was 
furnished with rough desks and seats for the larger 
scholars, while the smaller ones were provided with two 
long benches of slabs supported on rough-hewn legs 
driven into holes on the bark sides of the slab. There 
was a huge stone fireplace in one end of the room, by 
which an attempt was made to warm it, with the result 
of roasting those who sat nearest, while those who sat 
furthest were freezing. 
In the bitterest weather there Avas a continual move- 
ment of the frozen and the thawed to and from the fire, 
occasioning considerable disorder. Nevertheless Josiah's 
scholars learned obedience as they stumbled along the 
rough pathway in pursuit of the three Rs. Abner Bor- 
den, standing in the reading class, balanced himself on 
one leg and slowly scratched it with the other foot as he 
spelled and respelled a puzzling word to himself. 
"Skip it an' go 'long!" his next classmate whispered. 
"Skip it an' go 'long," Abner repeated, in his high- 
pitched reading voice. 
"Don't 'you know what b-a-r-r-e-1 spells?" the master 
asked, when the laughter subsided. "What does your 
father put his cider intu?" 
A great light broke upon Abner's intellect, and he 
blurted out, "Hunh! int' the bung!" 
"Master, may I speak ?" a scholar asked, eagerly, after 
a stolen glance out of the window one day in early winter, 
and getting permission, reported that he had just seen 
Mr. Briggs' dog tree a bear not forty rods from the 
schoolhouse. When the master was satisfied of the fact 
by occular proof, he sent the discoverer for the long 
smooth-bore, powder horn and bullet pouch, and when 
it was brought and carefully loaded he dismissed school 
for half an hour, and with all the scholars at his heels 
went out and shot the bear. He turned over the bounty 
and skin to the committee to be applied on school ex- 
penses. 
Josiah had not been many years settled in Danvis 
when his old comrade Kenelm Dalrymple came to him 
broken with age, infirm and homeless; but the latter 
no longer when he came to this hospitable shelter. 
"I useter 'most wish when I was wanderin' hither an' 
yon wi'aout kith or kin or friend, I could come tu 
my own ag'in," he said, sitting in comfort by the glow- 
ing hearth, with his pipe ablast; "but I guess I'm better 
oft' here 'an I would be in boughten clo'es, a-lordin' 
on't or tryin' tu, for I reckon a Yankee wouldn't make 
no great fist on't. Seventy-five or eighty year amongst 
'em have pootv nigh made me one on 'em." 
Then following Ruby with his eyes until she left the 
room, :'You did make a Iwcky. hit when yoti got her, 
boy! But I 'spect it all come o' my puttin' ye on guard 
ag'in 'em. It made ye kerful a-choosin'. " 
"The' wa'n't no ch'ice," Josiah protested. "We had 
tu an' so we did — that's all." 
Yet Kenelm could scarcely believe that he was not 
entitled to some credit for Josiah's selection. 
He could not be reconciled by any argument to his 
pupil's abandonment of the rifle for the smooth-bore, 
vv-hich he held in utter contempt, though he would same- 
times condescend to use Josiah's, and always came home 
blaming its inaccuracy for the fair shots missed, 
His days went by in tranquil enjoyment, and at last, as 
he dozed in his seat by the fireside, he passed into the 
profounder sleep of death, and came to his own in the 
land of the leal. 
Josiah was the first captain of militia in his town, and 
held the office long, for though he was a martinet hi.s 
company was the best drilled in the regiment — a distinc- 
tion of which the members were too proud to depose their 
old commander, whose scolding had brought them to its 
achievement. 
He started with them for Plattsburgh, but could get 
no further than Burlington; where he fretted and fumed 
till the roar of battle ceased, and the news of the glorious 
victory came; and wondered how Jt was gained without 
his aid. 
He became the patriarch of a populous town whereof 
he was once almost the sole human inhabitant. The 
contemporaries of his early manhood were all gone, and 
to him alone were left memories of the old pioneer days, 
their hardships and the unsung deeds of humble heroes 
and heroines. 
Through the mists of years the events of the past and 
his part in them loomed large to his vision, and lost 
nothing in the telling when there was no one left to dis- 
pute the garrulous tongue of old age. Yet if he was given 
to boasting, who shall say that even the humblest of 
those heroic pioneers had not a right to be proud that he 
was a founder of the Republic of the Green Mountains? 
Rowland E. Robinson, 
New Hampstufe's Homecoming. 
TkOM the roar of the streets and the city's dull hum. 
Hear the cry of her sons; "To New Hampshire we come;" 
While an answer is echoed from black Sandwich dome: 
"To the arms of your mother we welcome you home!" 
To broad Winnepesaulcee, with all her fair isles. 
Where the legend relates that "The Great Spirit smiles," 
To swift Pemigewassett, which leaps from the hills, 
As it garners the tribute of thousand clear rills. 
To Contiecticut's valley and Penacook's plain, 
To Umbagog, asleep, on the borders of Maine; ; 
To Chocorua's cliffs and Agischook's crest, 
The sonis of New Hampshire are coming to rest! 
To bright Sunapee'.s waters, high lifted in air. 
Where "the points of the compass'-' by mountains sliow Mr» 
For Cardigan, Kearsarge, Sunapee rise 
To mark "north, east and .south, as they point to the skies. 
While Ascutney the ciircuit completes in the west. 
Though .she's not in New Hampshire, like all of the rest. 1 
But in those old grants of her pioneer claim, 
Which now of VermQnt ha*e gxioftted the name. 
To Monadnock, whose rocks, from their girdle of green. 
Look so quietly down on Ashuelot's fair scene; ' 
To the rivers, whose voices persistently call: 
Ammonoosuc, Contoocook, Souhegan and all. 
To the cottage or schoolhouse on hill or in dell, 
Where "the old oaken bucket" stDl hangs in the well; 
Or the spring from the mountain flows limpid and clear. 
To the trough by the roadside, the thirsty tiiicheer. 
To the brooks which they fished and the hilTs.'where they strayed, 
And rested their limbs in the broad chestnut shade, 
While they watched for a sight of the squirrel's gray fur. 
When the first frosts of autumn had opened eacl^ burr. 
To the knolls where the niayiiower opened its bloom 
To fill the spring air with its fragrant perfume, f;' 
To the meadows, where tall yellow lilies were spread; 
Or the pastures ablaze with their cousins so red! , ^ 
To the holes of the woodchuck, the den of the fox. 
Who sheltered his brush in a cleft of the rocks; f 
To all the loved spots to each memory dear — 
The sons of New Hampshire caU out "We are here!" ' 
We answer their greeting: "Come, one and all, 
From workshop and counter, from office and hall; 
No matter how widely your footsteps may roam, 
Dear sons of New Hampshire, we welcome you home!" 
Aug. 31, 1899. 
Von W. 
Crabs to be properly killed should, before boiling be 
thrust through the mouth and body with a sharp steel at 
one blow. 
When a lobster is required, insert a narrow-bladed 
knii^e into the third joint of the tail, severing the spinal 
cord; this will cause instant death and is much less cruel 
than to put it into the water alive, especially if it is not 
boihng, as. the lobster then suffers a slow, lingering 
death. 
Terrapin also should be mercifully killed before being 
cooked. 
The eel tribe is said to be a terrible sufferer from man's 
inhumanity to fish. So difficult is it, apparently to kill 
eels, that people have even ceased to try to kill them at all. 
If their heads were cut off before they were otherwise 
handled, they would at once be out of their misery — 
Boston Transcript. 
"Fain would I write a poem on the delights of fishing; 
but, ah me! I cannot find a word to rhyme with 'angle 
worm,' " sighed Pisistratus, as he gazed thoughtfully into 
the dark, sullen waters. "But whv must you put that 
word at the end of a line?" queried Eucalyptus. "Because 
an angleworm is always at the end of a line," hissed 
Pisistratus between his set teeth; and for a lone- time it 
was so still that one could distinctly hear a peach blow — 
Puck. 
