“Look on de sunny side,
Git on de sunny side,
Stay on de sunny side
Of life!”
The song ended in a howl of fright.
Tick Hush came to a stand with both hands outstretched to ward off the attack of a girl who stood in the middle of the moonlit road with a shotgun at her shoulder.
“Git ready to die, Ticky!” she snarled. “Dis am de end of you!”
Then both barrels of the gun went off at about the same time.
Tick went off, too.
Fortunately for Tick, Button Hook was not familiar with the use of firearms. She had heard her father say that his old shotgun kicked like a yearling mule. She was afraid of the gun, afraid of the noise it made, and afraid of the kick. She had held it far from her shoulder to avoid the rebound, had shut both her eyes, and pulled both triggers. When the gun went off she dropped it on the ground, and went home at full speed, squalling at every step.
Tick leaped to one side of the road, tore both legs off his pantaloons at the knee clambering over a barbed-wire fence, and went howling through the woods, bumping against nearly every tree in his flight.
Like a crawfish, Tick went forward and looked back.
When at last he felt that he had escaped from danger, he was bleeding from a number of wounds on his head, bleeding at both knees, bleeding where the barbed-wire had cut his lips, and his nose was a spouting fountain of red.