“Well, John, as to the learning, you must forelay for them; when they’re coming towards you, swing your gun as they fly, and aim jest before their bill, and then they’ll fly right into the shot. The best bird for a boy to practise on is a fish-hawk, because they are a large mark, and fly steady, but they are all gone south now; but a coot will do very well. You must shoot, and shoot, and practise till you get it; and jest as you begin to think you never can get it, ’twill come. You better take my gun; it goes quicker than yours. I’ll manage the boat; you can fire, and I’ll watch you and tell you.”
On their way home they fell into conversation about the other boys.
“I don’t think,” said John, “that Fred is a bad-hearted boy; we’ve always played together, and he was a good boy till Pete came here. I believe all of them would do well enough, if ’twasn’t for him, and would never do any real mean mischief of their own heads; they like fun, and so do I, and should be as full of mischief as any of them, if I didn’t like gunning so much better, which takes up all my spare time.”
“That Pete is too rotten to nail to. As for Fred, there’s more foundation to him; he’s had a better bringing up; he’s like the fish that take the color of the bottom they feed on; he falls in with the company he keeps, and can’t stand on his own legs.”
“I don’t believe I should have been one whit better than Fred, if I had been brought up as he has. I’ve known Fred to do a real good day’s work, and his father and mother never take the least notice of it; now, big boy as I am, there’s nothing pleases me so much as to have father come and see what I’ve done, and praise me for it; then his father always sets his bounds, and tells him he may go to such a tree or rock; of course he wants to go over; he’d be a fool if he didn’t. I’ve gone over there sometimes, all dressed up, to play with him, and his father would keep him to work, when Fred knew, and I knew, that the work might be just as well done the next day. I tell you, that makes a boy feel ugly. Now, just look at my father; I’ve known him, when boys came over here to play with me, to let me off, and work till after dark himself. Think I didn’t put in the next day, and watch for chances to make it up? and do you think I’ll ever forget it, as long as I live? ’Tisn’t every boy, Uncle Isaac, that’s got as good father and mother as I have.”
“You never spoke a truer word than that, John.”
“I don’t believe a boy can love a man, just because he’s his father, if he treats him just like a dog.”
“Don’t you think, then, instead of leaving Fred altogether, it would be better to ask him to go with you and me sometimes?”
“I think we should have a great deal better time without him.”
“Perhaps so; but we ought to be willing sometimes to displease ourselves, for the sake of benefiting others. A boy or man, who never thinks of anybody’s comfort or happiness but his own, is a pretty mean sort of an affair, and ought not to be allowed round. There’s Pete; he’s no credit to his Maker, and only a plague to the neighborhood, and swears awful; yet God feeds and clothes him.”