“A-hunting? Who—what—when? You have not been shooting that gun, have you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Goodness! Who loaded it?”
“I—did—sir.”
“And fired it off?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you kill anything?”
“I—don’t know,—sir.”
After all, the captain couldn’t help laughing at this point, and as soon as he did Ephraim felt better. He brightened up in a moment, and made the best of his father’s good-nature by telling the whole story at once. He had forgotten to take the ramrod out, he said, and fired it at the owl. He guessed the owl went off to die somewhere, for he didn’t see him again; but the ramrod was up so high he couldn’t get it.
The captain laughed; still, the view he took of the matter was an unpleasantly serious one for Ephraim; who understood that if he should ever take that gun again in his father’s absence the consequences would be direful. The gun was no gun without a ramrod, in his father’s trained eyes, so he at once set out, with Ephraim as guide, and the hired man carrying a ladder, to recover it.