"Yes, that's the kind, I guess. I wa'n't there. Dave Hunt was doin' that. I see in the paper they called him 'Gunner David Hunt.' I nearly bust over that. 'Gunner David Hunt'!"
He rocked forward and back on the bench, chuckling and repeating, "Gunner David Hunt!" from time to time.
"Why, where do you think he was durin' the whole war?"
We could not imagine.
"Down in Boston Harbor—that's where he was. Why, he never smelled powder in his life!"
This seemed extraordinary to me. I had seen "Gunner David Hunt" on that Fourth of July, and if he hadn't smelled powder that day, he must have been suffering with a fearful cold. I had smelled it distinctly; even kept, as I was, at a discreet distance. For Mr. Hunt, working with the greatest activity in the midst of clouds of smoke, not to have detected the odor struck me as amazing. I was incautious enough to point out my impressions to the old fellow in blue.
He rewarded me with another such look of scorn as that with which he greeted Ed's mistake about the guns.
"He never smelled powder, I tell yer. That means he never heard a shot fired in anger. He may have fired some of them guns down in that fort in Boston Harbor, at a hogshead floatin' in the water, jus' for practice. But he never stood up against the enemy an' give 'em back shot for shot. An' the paper called him 'Gunner Hunt'! Oh, my Chris'mas!"
He rocked forward and back again, and laughed long and heartily. As it seemed to be the proper thing to do, all three of us laughed, as well as we could, over the presumption of Mr. Hunt.
Then the soldier became serious. He took his walking-stick, held it out at arm's length, and pointed across the pond.