Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 / An Illustrated Weekly

Hello, Foster, what's that you're doing?—shooting with a bow and arrows?
Yes, Stuart made 'em for me. Come in and try 'em.
Harry came into the yard, where Foster was shooting at a collar box placed on a grassy bank, and made a few unsuccessful shots at twenty yards, when Foster took the bow, and hit the box frequently, to Harry's wonder and envy.
Stuart made 'em for me, and taught me how to handle 'em. He has a bow taller than himself, over six feet long; and up in the mountains he killed a deer a week ago—killed a deer with an arrow.
Do arrows go hard enough to kill ? Say, Foster, will Stuart make a bow for me? Won't you ask him?
We've got a better thing than that. Stuart wants us to get up an archery club, and he will show us how to make our own bows and arrows, just as the Indians do. Henry, Fred, Will, and Ned will join, I know, and then we will have six—just enough to go off hunting on Saturdays, and have a jolly time. And we'll have a name for the club, and make a regular camp somewhere near the Glen, and have our dinners there, and our meetings, just as Robin Hood and his men did in England. How's that, Harry?
Best thing out, Foster. But how are we to make our bows, and what shall we make them of?
Oh, Stuart has told me all about it. You must pick out the straightest, cleanest sassafras pole in the hen-house, and get Preston to saw it up into sticks one inch square and five and a quarter feet long. Then bring them over here, and Stuart will show you how to make a bow. Stuart will have a lot of pine and spruce sawed up for arrows, and you must get all the goose and turkey feathers you can, and bring them over too, and he will tell us about arrow-making. Now go and tell the rest of the boys, and get your sassafras to Preston's as soon as you can. Perhaps we can get ready to go out Saturday.
After school the next day six eager boys stood around Stuart as he took a sassafras stick, and showed them how to make a hunting bow, talking as he worked.