Chapter Thirteen.
How I learned to shoot.
I did not know where we were going, or how we got there, in my state of excitement; but I found myself as if in a dream handling guns and rifles that my uncle placed before me, and soon after we were in a long passage place with a white-washed target at the end, and half a dozen guns on a table at my side.
“Look here, Nat,” said Uncle Dick, “time soon steps by, my boy, and you will grow older and stronger every day, so I shall let you have both gun and rifle a little too heavy for you. You must make shift with them at first, and you will improve in their use day by day.”
“Yes, uncle,” I said as I looked at the beautifully finished weapons from which we were to choose.
“Did you ever fire off a gun?” said my uncle.
“No, uncle.”
“You will not be afraid?”
“Will it hurt me, uncle?”