Marstons Mills - 1875
1875. Quail Shooting
(Oct. 19) [October 19, 1875] the direction of the town and following 
on what was our surprise to find
them scattered about in the gardens,
front yards. and some in the very
street itself. We did what shooting
we could without running the risk
of bagging anything undesirably
large, and left them minus four
of their original number. One occurrence
here is worthy of record. [delete]At the first[/delete]
A woman was ironing clothes in
her kitchen one small window
being open into the room. Happening
to look out she saw three birds swiftly
passing the house when suddenly
one of them turned [delete]at[/delete] a sharp [delete]right[/delete]
angle in its course and darting
through the open window struck
against a clothes horse which stood
in front of the fire covered with drying
clothes, and fell to the floor. The
woman was for a moment completely
surprised by the suddenness of the
birds appearance, but the next recov-
ering herself she stooped to pick it
up when it shot out through the
window again and disappeared as
quickly as it had come. This was
one of the birds started at the first
rise: its life was probably saved only
by the elastic character of the surface
against which it struck, for so
great was its impetus that the horse
clothes and all was overthrown
on [delete]to[/delete] the hearth. We afterwards