After school the next day six eager boys stood around Stuart as he took a sassafras stick, and showed them how to make a hunting bow, talking as he worked.
"Now look close, youngsters. First plane one side of the stick straight and smooth. This is to be the 'back' of the bow, and mustn't be touched again. Next mark the middle of the stick, and lay off four and a half inches to one side for a handle. Then turn the stick on its back, and plane away the 'belly' of the bow, tapering it truly from handle to 'tip.' Do the same to the sides, leaving each tip about three-eighths of an inch square. Now take a file or a spokeshave, and round off the 'sides' and 'belly' carefully, taking care not to touch the 'back' of the bow. There, the bow is in good shape, but it may not bend truly; so file a notch with a small round file in each tip half an inch from each extremity, running the groove straight across the 'back,' and slanting it across the sides away from the tips toward the middle or handle of the bow. Make a strong string of slack-twisted shoe-maker's thread, with a loop in each end, so that when the string is put on the bow by slipping the loops into the nocks, it will bend the bow so much that the middle of the string is five inches from the handle. If the bow when thus bent is too stiff in any spot, file it a little there till it bends right; and when it finally bends truly from tip to tip, put on a piece of plush for a handle, and smooth and polish your bow ready for exhibition. There, Harry, that is your bow. Now one of you may go to work at another stick, while I go and feather some arrows."
At it Henry went, eager and enthusiastic; but it was a bothersome job for young and inexperienced hands. The stick would slip, and the plane would stick, in spite of him, and his face grew very red and his eyes very bright. With Stuart's aid, however, he finally completed a very fair bow before dark, and when he had actually shot an arrow from it, his worry all vanished, and he felt very proud of his new weapon.
The following afternoon they all came together, and more bows were made. Under Stuart's direction arrow shafts were rounded and smoothed, the vanes were cut from the quills, and several fair arrows completed before separating for their homes, where all, even the staid old grandpas and grandmas, were infected by the enthusiasm of the boy archers, and Indian stories were told by the kitchen fire.
By Friday night all the six were armed with sassafras bows, and nicely feathered spruce arrows, with pewter heads, blunt, that they might not stick into and be lost in the trees. Their quivers were of pasteboard rolled in glue, upon a tapering form, and their arm-guards of hard thick leather, securely fastened to their left fore-arms by small straps and buckles. And when, early Saturday morning, they came together at Foster's house, never was a more gallant squad of young archers seen. Stumps, trees, late apples, and one or two wandering mice served as marks for their ready arrows while waiting for the start.
"Here, you boys! shoot them arrers t'other way. They'll spile more'n they're wuth," called out the good-natured hired man; and Foster raised grandma's ire by driving a shaft up to the feathers in a golden pumpkin she had selected for seed, and placed on the well curb to "sun."
By the time their haversacks were filled with potatoes, bread, doughnuts, meat, etc., and they had started for the Glen across lots, shooting as they went, all the family were relieved for the moment, only to worry the rest of the day lest some unlucky arrow, glancing, should hurt one of them; and mother's anxiety wasn't relieved when Stuart wickedly told her how Walter Tyrrel killed King William Rufus with a glancing arrow from his bow while hunting.
The birds and the squirrels that our boys met that day were treated to many a close hissing arrow, though not many of them suffered, because of the boys' lack of skill with the long-bow.
"Sh-h-h! boys," suddenly whispered Foster, as the little band paused for a moment in a clump of spruces; and springing noiselessly up, his bow was braced, his arrow fitted, and a stricken bird was fluttering at their feet in a few seconds. The flutterings of the fallen bird were more than equalled by those of Foster's heart, as he held the still quivering crow-blackbird which his arrow had brought from the highest twig of a tall spruce. Proud and exultant, yet tears glistened in his eyes as he silently gazed upon the soiled plumage of the bird's beautiful neck and breast, and felt its last faint gaspings as its reproachful eyes became glassy in death.
"The beautiful bird! Oh, I won't shoot another bird," he declared, with quivering lips. "How pretty it is, and how warm! I'll ask Stuart to stuff it, so that I can keep it forever."