"Now, Joshaway," exclaimed aunt Judith, "don't tease the boy that way. He won't miss just one day's schoolin', and the crust ain't going to last forever. If Mrs. Stebbins can spare Vosh"—
"My mother? Why, she'd go herself if she could."
"Well, Corry," said his father, "if you and Port'll agree not to kill too many deer, you may go."
Port was still wrestling with the painful idea of a gun missing fire after it was actually pointed at large game. There was something dreadful and incredible about it; and, when the weapons were brought out, he cleaned away at them almost painfully.
Deacon Farnham attended to his own rifle. Then he took a ladle, and melted some lead at the kitchen fire, and moulded a score or so of bullets.
"Will that be enough?" asked Port.
"With those in my pouch? I'd say they would. If I get a chance to use half a dozen, I'll be satisfied. You boys'd better take plenty of buckshot, though. You'll be sowing the woods with 'em."
Susie did not exactly care to handle those "shooting-irons," as Vosh called them; but there was a strange fascination about them, after all. She could understand why, when they were all laid down on the table, aunt Judith put on her spectacles, and came and peered at them all over, and said,—
"They ain't much like the guns we had when I was a girl. They used to kill heaps o' game, too."
"What is the difference, aunt Judith?" asked Susie.