Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1913 
VOL. LXXXI.-No. 22. 
22 Thames St., New York. 
My First Shooting Expedition 
H ERE you are asked to listen while an 
old man tells the happenings of over 
half a century ago. 
What a ways back to wander ! What a 
twisting, turning road to follow! Now 
through dark swamps of sickness and trouble, 
then bursting into burning sunlight of pros¬ 
perity, dazzling in its brightness. Again, 
through the black clouds of war with crash of 
cannon, rattle of musketry and shouts of con¬ 
flict, back, back, until memory almost loses 
its grasp, and things that happened are but a 
blurred remembrance. 
In an old faded photograph there is always 
one line, one spot, which retains its clearness 
when all else has become dim or entirely 
disappeared. 
So in a picture of the writer’s early life, time 
has left much a blank; a few shapeless blotches 
mark more of the film, but one of the spots 
showing clear and distinct, is his first shoot¬ 
ing expedition ’way back in the Christmas 
season of 1858. 
It was Christmas time. School had closed 
for the holiday week. School! In a city of 
14.000 inhabitants. Wilmington, North Caro¬ 
lina. There were but two schools, small, pri¬ 
vate affairs, one in each end of the town, 
where for about $50 a term the sons and 
daughters of those who had the price were 
taught anything from primer and first reader 
up to geometry and the classics. 
The rule of practice in these schools, at 
least as far as the male students were con¬ 
cerned, was: 
A dose of strap oil, given in time, 
Is worth a whole lot and surely’ll save nine. 
How conscientious those worthy pedagogues 
were! How impartially they distributed favors 
daily, slighting none, sparing none; but this is 
digressing. 
The writer had done fairly well in his 
studies, and when the holidays came, his good 
old grandfather one morning asked, “Would 
you like to spend a few days visiting Colonei 
Howard at his rice plantation in Brunswick 
county?” 
“Dunno,” was the answer he ieceived. 
“Nothing going on there. Too late for rice 
By E. T. MARTIN 
birds. Too cold for fishing. Believe I’d rather 
stay in the city and see the sights.” 
“As you please,” the old gentleman replied, 
“only you've done pretty well in school lately, 
and I thought perhaps I’d let you take my 
gun and try some shooting.” 
OPEN SEASON IN ALL STATES, THURSDAY. NOVEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH 
