Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1906-02-14

gun that mother had bought OF a deacon's
youngest son in some sort of barter or
trade, and father kept it loaded and hung
up on the gun brackets in the kitchen. 1t
was seldom used so when any one charge
had remained in the gun for a long time,
father, being very careful and cautious
man, would not risk firing it off holding
it to his face and shoulder, but instead
would bind it to good strong fence, tie
long string to the trigger, and then get at
the end of the string, at safe distance,
and pull it off, thus making careful calcu-
lations that whether the gun burst or
kicked down the fence, he would be sure
to come out unhurt.
As the gun, the fence and the man never
suffered, father would reload the family
fowling piece and hang it up again with
the powder horn and shot pouch, to be
ready for any emergency.
Every May we planted our patch of
corn, and the saying of a certain old Indian
which was: ''If he cum, he no cum, and
if he no cum, he cum" which being in
terpreted meant that if the crow should
put in appearance, there would be no crop
grow, but If the crow should keep away,
there would be corn-corn to roast and to
boil, corn for the enjoyable husking- bee,
corn to carry to mill in the fall, corn meal
for johnny cake; corn meal for brown
bread to go with baked beans; corn meal
for hasty buildings and other kinds of
puddings. We must protect, in some way,
our corn crop.
remember that | was a small boy, but
big enough, 1 thought, to handle a gun;
but fathers maneuvres with the gun had
made me timid. However, one May, as
crows came to the farm and / saw them
ON fence stakes and trees round about, l
determined to do little cunning for
them.
On a certain ledge, a short distance in
rear of the house, stood a little smoke
house, which 1 thought would make a
good cover for me; so / went to the work
shop, procured large augur, went to the
smoke house and bored hole through a
board in the lack of it.
Then got my founder spear and went
to the shore, where we had aIittle red
skiff. showed the skiff out over the flats,
| and very soon had dozen or more of
founders in the bottom of it. They
Topped about at a great rate, for few
minutes, each as / jerked him from the
spear, with his tail reeked vengeance on
me, splashing Shiny water all over my
homespuns and into my face, but what
did l care for that? was after crow bait.
When had speared all the fat fish /
I Z
strung my catch and lugged them to the
house, where / cut off their heads and fins,
thus giving to each body a pumpkin seed
shape. These l reserved for our table.
The refuse put out on a knoll back OF
the smoke house for the benefit of the
crows.
1t is not long before crows came and
scented the bait. There was forest of
saplings, with here and there a tall pine
that shot many feet above the tops of the
| other trees; and there were also large
hackmatacks, that stood out in the open.
! One of the latter seemed to be a tav
orite tree with the crows. Here they
would light and take observation, as i;
were; three crows, the number, usual $,
l 5ttilltL " LA w tilOsCi Dlit vi tuClE lOl ds
leader or general.
! This one did great deal of talking and
gesticulating with his head. He would
give orders, it seemed to me, to the other
( two; for l observed that one would fly
down and light upon the bait; then after
a while OF quiet waiting, another would
follow; and finally the general himself
would venture down.
I tried many times to get into the smoke
house unseen by these keen-eyed crows,
only to meet with failure. Finally l sue
ceeded and in due time all three crows
were on the bait having feast. stuck
the muzzle of my gun out through the
aforementioned auger hole and blazed
| away. Being afraid of my gun, my aim
was poor. l overshot the birds.
But gave them such a tremendous sur
prise, they flew away without even bid
ding me goodbye, and only found their
tongues when safely in their tree again,
and that crow general made the most
noise. He seemed to be Growing over me,
and / was so chagrined at my failure l
bothered the crows no more, but procured
stakes and Irvine and strung the corn.
Now on the first morning OF this visit
of mine to the OLD home, as / came down
stairs, my sister said she was going to give
me something for my breakfast that
would remind me of old times. Upon in
vestigation, found that she was going to
roast smoked alewife, a fish of which
am very fond,
In the meantime thought / would go
out and look about the premises to see
what | could find of old things and old
scenes. IS / opened the door | saw
that a very heavy dew had fallen during
the night, and the grass stubble was COW
cred with spider nets, and as the morning
sun shone upon them, 1ew-drops hanging
from their threads sparkled like diamonds.
From distance, there fioated to my ears
music, that in those other days was very
familiar to me. 1t was "caw, cav, caw,"