nd he began whimpering for joy, and
twisting himself sideways up against them, and nearly wagging his tail
off; and licking their hands and faces, and kissing their guns all over;
he was about crazy. When they started, he knew where they were going,
and he rushed ahead through the silent little sleeping town, and led the
way across the wide Commons, where the cows lay in dim bulks on the
grass, and the geese waddled out of his way with wild, clamorous cries,
till they came in sight of the Reservoir. Then Tip fell back with my boy
and let the elder brother go ahead, for he always had a right to the
first shot; and while he dodged down behind the bank, and crept along to
the place where the ducks usually were, my boy kept a hold on Tip's
collar, and took in the beautiful mystery of the early morning. The
place so familiar by day was estranged to his eyes in that pale light,
and he was glad of old Tip's company, for it seemed a time when there
might very well be ghosts about. The water stretched a sheet of smooth,
gray silver, with little tufts of mist on its surface, and through these
at last he could see the ducks softly gliding to and fro, and he could
catch some dreamy sound from them. His heart stood still and then jumped
wildly in his breast, as the still air was startled with the rush of
wings, and the water broke with the plunge of other flocks arriving.
Then he began to make those bets with himself that a boy hopes he will
lose: he bet that his brother would not hit any of them; he bet that he
did not even see them; he bet that if he did see them and got a shot at
them, they would not come back so that he could get a chance himself to
kill any. It seemed to him that he had to wait an hour, and just when he
was going to hollo, and tell his brother where the ducks were, the old
smooth-bore sent out a red flash and a white puff before he heard the
report; Tip tore loose from his grasp; and he heard the splashing rise
of the ducks, and the hurtling rush of their wings; and he ran forward,
yelling, "How many did you hit? Where are they? Where are you? Are they
coming back? It's my turn now!" and making an outcry that would have
frightened away a fleet of ironclads, but much less a flock of ducks.

One shot always ended the morning's sport, and there were always good
reasons why this shot never killed anything.

NUTTING

The woods were pretty full of the kind of hickory-trees called pignuts,
and the boys gathe