“Ah! that’s it!” thought he. “But what am I going to do? It’s away up there and I can’t get it!” and then Ephraim began to wish he had left the gun at home. The pain in his shoulder didn’t trouble him much then; his trouble was mostly in his mind, concerning his father and that ramrod. How he could reconcile one to the loss of the other was more than he could tell.
It was a very large tree, without a foot-hold or a finger-hold for a long way up, and the ramrod was stuck in a large dead limb, ten feet out. Ephraim saw at once that he never could get it; and he wished he hadn’t fired that last shot. Possibly he thought the owl was to blame; but whether he did or not there was no help for it. So after awhile he got up, and picked up his gun, and went slowly and sadly towards home.
He had not decided upon any course in particular when he entered the house. It was one of those cases the explanation of which must be left largely to the circumstances of the moment.
His mother met him with the gun in his hand.
“Ephraim!” said she astonished, and too frightened to say more.
“I’ve been hunting, mother,” said Ephraim, very demurely.
“Hunting, my child? Merciful Father!”
“Father didn’t know, it, mother; and I don’t want you to tell him.”
“My son! my son! is the gun loaded?”
“Not now, mother. I fired it off.”