“Good,” said he, “these balls are near enough to give a critter the heart-ache, at any rate. You are a better shot than I am; and that’s what I have never seen in this province. Strange, too, for you don’t live in the woods as I do.”
“That’s the reason,” said I, “I shoot for practice, you, when you require it. Use keeps your hand in, but it wouldn’t do it for me; so I make up by practising whenever I can. When I go to the woods, which ain’t as often now as I could wish, for they ain’t to be found everywhere in our great country, I enjoy it with all my heart. I enter into it as keen as a hound, and I don’t care to have the Clockmaker run rigs on. A man’s life often depends on his shot, and he ought to be afraid of nothin’. Some men, too, are as dangerous as wild beasts; but if they know you can snuff a candle with a ball, hand runnin’, why, they are apt to try their luck with some one else, that ain’t up to snuff, that’s all. It’s a common feeling, that.
“The best shot I ever knew, was a tailor at Albany. He used to be very fond of brousin’ in the forest sometimes, and the young fellows was apt to have a shy at Thimble. They talked of the skirts of the forest, the capes of the Hudson, laughing in their sleeve, giving a fellow a bastin, having a stitch in the side, cuffing a fellow’s ears, taking a tuck-in at lunch, or calling mint-julip an inside lining, and so on; and every time any o’ these words came out, they all laughed like anything.
“Well, the critter, who was really a capital fellow, used to join in the laugh himself, but still grinnin’ is no proof a man enjoys it; for a hyena will laugh, if you give him a poke. So what does he do, but practise in secret every morning and evening at pistol-shooting for an hour or two, until he was a shade more than perfection itself. Well, one day he was out with a party of them same coons, and they began to run the old rig on him as usual. And he jumps up on eend, and in a joking kind o’ way, said: ‘Gentlemen, can any of you stitch a button-hole, with the button in it?’ Well, they all roared out at that like mad.
“‘No, Sirree,’ sais they, ‘but come, show us Thimble, will you? that’s a good fellow. Tom, fetch the goose to press it when it’s done. Dick, cabbage a bit of cloth for him to try it upon. Why, Tom, you are as sharp as a needle.’
“‘Well,’ sais he, ‘I’ll show you.’
“So he went to a tree, and took out of his pocket a fip-penny bit, that had a hole in the centre, and putting in it a small nail, which he had provided, he fastened it to the tree.
“‘Now,’ said he, taking out a pair of pistols, and lots of ammunition, from the bottom of his prog-basket, where he had hid them. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘gentlemen, the way to stitch a buttonhole, is to put balls all round that button, in a close ring, and never disturb them; that’s what we tailors call workmanlike:’ and he fired away, shot after shot, till he had done it.
“‘Now,’ said he,’ gentlemen, that button has to be fastened;’ and he fired, and drove the nail that it hung on into the tree. ‘And now, gentlemen,’ said he, ‘I have stood your shots for many a long day, turn about is fair play. The first man that cracks a joke at me, on account of my calling, must stand my shot, and ‘if I don’t stitch his button-hole for him, I am no tailor; that’s all.’
“Well, they all cheered him when he sat down, and they drank his health; and the boss of the day said: ‘Well, Street (afore that he used to call him Thimble), well, Street,’ said he, ‘you are a man.’