wouldn't carry ducks. While he
was coaxing me to go in the cold water without my pants on, I heard some
wild geese squawking, and then Pa heard them, and he was excited. He
said you lay down behind the muskrat house, and I will get a goose. I
told him he couldn't kill a goose with that fine shot, and I gave him
a large cartridge the gun store man loaded for me, with a handful of
powder in, and I told Pa it was a goose cartridge, and Pa put it in the
gun. The geese came along, about a mile high, squawking, and Pa aimed at
a dark cloud and fired. Well, I was offul scared, I thought I had killed
him."

[Illustration: The gun just rared up p088]

"The gun just rared up and come down on his jaw, shoulder and everywhere,
and he went over a log and struck on his shoulder, the gun flew out of
his hands, and Pa he laid there on his neck, with his feet over the log,
and that was the first time he didn't scold me since he got relidgin. I
felt offul sorry, and got some dirty water in my hat and poured it down
his neck, and laid him out, and pretty soon he opened his eyes and asked
if any of the passengers got ashore alive. Then his eye swelled out so
it looked like a blue door-knob, and pa felt of his jaw, and asked
if the engineer and fireman jumped off, or if they went down with the
engine. He seemed dazed, and then he saw the gun, and he said take the
dam thing away, it is going to kick me again. Then he got his senses and
wanted to know if he killed a goose, and I told him no, but he nearly
broke one's jaw, and then he said the gun kicked him when it went off,
and he laid down and the gun kept kicking him more than twenty times,
when he was trying to sleep. He went back to the tavern where we were
stopping and wouldn't touch the gun, but made me lug it. He told the
tavern keeper that he fell over a wire fence, but I think he began to
suspect, after he spit the loose teeth out, that the gun was loaded for
bear. I suppose he will kill me some day. Don't you think he will?"

"Any coroner's jury would let him off and call it justifiable, if he
should kill you. You must be a lunatic. Has your Pa talked much about it
since you got back?" asked the grocery man.

"Not much. You see he can't talk much without breaking his jaw. But he
was able to throw a chair at me. You see I thought I would joke him a
little, cause when anybody feels bad a joke kind of livens em up, so we
were talking about Pa's liver, and Ma said he seemed to be b