EPHRAIM BARTLETT’S first hunting adventure was of such a serio-comic nature that it seems really worth relating.
Ephraim’s father was a “selectman.” He had also been a captain of militia in his younger days, and therefore it happened that in speaking of him everybody called him “The Captain.” He bore his honors meekly, was a well-to-do farmer, and very much respected.
It was town-meeting day—early in November,—when, of course the captain had to go to the polls to look after the voting, and help count the votes. It was delightful Indian-summer weather, too; one of the last of those soft hazy days in the late autumn, when there is such a quiet beauty over the earth that it seems of heaven itself. When even the winds forget to blow; and it seems, at times, as if all nature were asleep. Then can be heard, in the edge of the distant forest, the tapping of woodpeckers, the barking of squirrels, and the hoarse cries of blue-jays, so distinctly does every slight sound reach you through the still atmosphere. It was on such a day that the captain and his hired man went to town-meeting, leaving Ephraim “the only man on the farm.”
Now Ephraim had been all the fall longing for a hunt; but his father had not time to go hunting with him, and he thought Ephraim too young to go alone. His father had no objection to his going alone, if he would only go without a gun; but Ephraim could not see the use of hunting without a gun. He longed to get into the woods with his father’s old training gun, all alone. This old piece was rather heavy for sporting purposes; but it was always kept in perfect order, standing in a corner of the captain’s bed-room, behind his desk.
So, after his father was gone, and while his mother was busied about the house, the temptation to take that gun was more than Ephraim could withstand. Watching his opportunity, he first secured the powder-horn and shot-pouch out of the drawer where they were kept, and then he took the musket, and bore it stealthily away behind the barn. He felt in a hurry, and as if he were not doing quite right, and was not quite easy in his mind, even after he had got the gun out of sight. He half resolved to carry it back at once, but finally concluded that he could return it just as well after he had had his hunt, and went to work to load it.
Ephraim was not quite sure how the gun should be loaded; but the powder seemed the most essential thing, so he put a handful of that in first. Then, without any wad between, as there should have been, he put in a handful of shot; and they were large enough, he thought, to kill almost anything. He put a very big wad on top of these, and rammed it hard down with the iron ramrod. It was a flint-lock piece, and he knew that powder would be needed in the pan; so he opened it to put some in. But the pan was already filled; for in ramming down the charge the piece had primed itself.
It was all right, Ephraim felt sure, and, keeping the barn between him and the house, he went towards the wood.
It was a lonely old wood. I often went through it myself when I was a boy, and I know all about it. In the brightest day it would be dark and gloomy under some of those great, wide-spreading, low-branched hemlocks. There were all kinds of wood there that are found in a New England forest; beech, birch, maple, oak, pine, hemlock and chestnut; and partridges, squirrels, rabbits, owls,—in fact, all sorts of small game made it their home.
With the gun on his shoulder Ephraim entered the woods and went trudging straight into it, as if all the game worth shooting were in the middle of it. He could hear the squirrels and blue-jays in the high branches overhead; but it was his first hunt, and he was resolved to have something bigger.