Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-09-20
CHAPTER Y
lis p GOES HUNTING

what has Your Pa got his Jaw tied
up for, and what makes his right eve so
black and blue" asked the grocery man
of the bad boy as the boy came to bring
some butter back that was strong enough
to work on the street. You haven't
hurt your poor old Pa, have you:'
"Oh, his jaw is all right now. You
ought to have seen him when the gun
was engaged in kicking him." says the
boy as he set the butter plate on the
cheesebox.
well, tell is about it. What had the
gun against your Pa? l guess it was the
son of a gun that kicked him." said the
grocery man a he win5ed at a servant
girl who came in with her apron over
her head after cents worth of yeast.
I'm tell you if you viii keep watch
down street for Pa. He says he Is
damned if le will stand this foolishness
Any longer"
What, does your father swear while
he is on probalon:'
Swear! Well. l should cackle. Yon
ought to have heard him when he come
to and spit out the loose teeth. You
see, since Pa quit drinking he is little
nervous, and the doctor said he ought to
go out somewhere and get bizness off his
mind, and hunt ducks, and row boat,
and get strength, and Pa said shooting
ducks was just in his hand, and for me
to go and borrow a gun, and 1 could go
along and carry game. So l got gun at
the gun store and some cartridges, and
we went away out west on the cars,
more than 80 miles, and staid two days.
You ought to seen Pa. He was just like
boy that was sick and couldn't go to
school. When we got out by the lake, he
jumped up and cracked his heels together
and yelled. thought he was crazy, but
he was only cunning.
First | scared him nearly to death by
firing off the gun behind him as we were
going along the bank and blowing off a
piece of his cOattail. / knew it wouldn't
hurt him, but he turned pale and told
me to lay down that gun, and he picked
it up and carried it the rest Of the way,
and was offul glad cause it was heavy
gun. His coattail smelled like when
you burn a rag to make the air in the
room stop smelling so all the forenoon.
You know Pa is little near sighted, but
he don't believe it, so / got some of the
wooden decoy ducks that the hunters
use and put them in the lake, and you
ought to see Pa get down on his belly
and crawl through the grass to get up
close to them. He shot 90 times at the
wooden ducks and wanted me to go in
and fetch them out, but told him was
no retriever dog.
"Then Pa was mad and said all he
brought me along for was to carry game,
and l had come near shooting his hind
leg off, and now l wouldn't carry ducks.
While he was coaxing me to go IN the
cold water without my pants on L heard
some wild geese squawking, and then
Pa heard them, and he was excited. he
said, You lay down behind the muskrat
house, and | will get a goose told him
he couldn't Kill a goose with that tne
shot, and 1 gave him a large cartridge
the gun store man loaded for me with
a handful of powder in, and told Pa 1t
was a goose cartridge, and Pa put 1t IN
the gun. Tie geese came along, about a
mile high, souawking, and Pa aimed at
a dark cloud and fired. Well, L was
offul scared. / thought l had killed him.
The gun JUS rared up and come down
on his Jaw. shoulder and everywhere.