“Mother, I can’t find my plummet, and there’s not a mite of lead in the house; what shall I do to rule the writing-book?”
“Ask grandfather to give you a bullet; he’s never without bullets.”
When grandfather was appealed to, he said, “I have but one, Bertie; and that’s in my rifle. I loaded her for an owl that’s been round trying to kill a goose, but I will lend it to you to rule your book.”
He took down the rifle into which Bertie had seen him drive the bullet, wrapped in a greased patch. “Grandpa, you never can get it out.”
“Go up stairs and get a bag of wool that is right at the head of the stairs.”
When Bertie brought the wool, grandfather made a circle on the bag with a smut coal, and a cross in the middle of it.
“Now, Bertie, take that bag out of doors and set it up where I tell you. I’m going to put a bullet into the middle of that cross.”
After placing the bag at the distance pointed out, he said, “Where shall I stand, grandpa?”
“Wherever you like, ‘cept betwixt me and that cross.”
“Why, grandfather, what are you thinking of? Come right into the house, Bertie,” cried Mrs. Whitman, “your grandfather’s going to shoot.”