Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 / An Illustrated Magazine

by Various

But woodpeckers are cunning fellows. They run up the trees, and stick in their bills, and hop about, and fly from one tree to another so fast, that it takes a pretty smart boy to hit one. They were tame enough, and would sometimes let Andy come quite near; they would stop pecking a moment, and hold up their red heads to take a good look at him; then they would begin to drum again in the merriest way, making little holes in the old peach-trees, which began to look like wooden soldiers that had gone through the wars and been shot in hundreds of places. But the instant Andy drew the bowstring and took aim, they knew well enough what it meant; and it was provoking to see them dodge around on the bark and get out of sight just in time to let the arrow whiz by them. Then they would go to pecking and drumming again so near, that he wished a dozen times that he had some kind of an arrow that would shoot around a tree and hit on the other side.

At length Andy grew tired of this fun; and he had lost his arrow so many times in the grass, and had to hunt for it, that he got vexed, and thought it would be much better sport to go and shoot a chicken.

Now he did not mean to kill a chicken, and he did not really think he would be able to hit one. But often we do things more easily when we are not trying very hard, than when we are too anxious. So it happened with Andy. He tried his luck on the speckled top-knot, which everybody considered the handsomest chick that had been hatched that summer. He drew his bow, let go the string, and the speckled top-knot keeled over. He ran up to it, very proud, at first, of his good shot, but frightened enough when he found that the chicken only just kicked a little, and then lay quite still.

Andy turned it over, and tried to stand it upon its legs, and thought what he should tell his parents.

“I'll say a hawk flew down and killed it! But I shot at the hawk, and he let it drop, just as he was flying away with it.”

This was the story he made up, as he took poor top-knot and laid it down by the well-curb.

He was still wishing to shoot something that was alive, and, seeing the cat creeping along on the fence watching for a mouse, he concluded to try his luck with her. So he drew up, aimed, and fired. Puss was so intent on watching the mouse that she paid no attention at all to the arrow, which struck the rail a little behind her, and glanced off towards the house. Andy heard a sound like shivered glass, and, running up, saw to his dismay that he had broken a window.

Now he had been told never to shoot his arrow towards the house; and how to conceal the accident and avoid punishment he couldn't at first imagine. The glass lay scattered on the pantry shelf, and the hole in the pane was large enough to put his hand through.

“I'll say Joe Beals came and wanted my bow, and because I wouldn't let him have it, he threw a stone at me, and broke the window.”

And having made up this story, he searched for such a stone as Joe would be apt to throw, and, having found one, placed it on the pantry floor, to appear as if it had fallen there after passing through the glass.