There is nothing in the world that is so beautiful as to see a sporting
man, one who loves to shoot the wild prairie chicken and chase the
bounding duck over the plains, have a respect for the Sabbath day. There
are too many of our sporting friends who, if they are out for a week's
shooting, forget that they should lay away the deadly breech loader
on Sunday, after oiling it, and busy themselves reading good books, or
loading cartridges.
However, we are proud to number among our acquaintances one sporting
gentleman who would sooner cut a dog in two than to hunt on Sunday. It
is related of him that on one occasion while in camp in a deer country,
that his hounds got after a buck one Sunday morning, and that our friend
was so incensed at the dogs that he seized his gun and shot one of the
dogs dead, besides wounding the deer, and that he had to follow the deer
over four miles before he could overtake the animal and put it out of
its misery.
A wicked companion said that he shot at the deer and killed the dog
accidentally, but those who know Mr. Van Brunt would not believe the
story for a moment. Not long since this gentleman left his home at
Horicon and went to Owatonna, Minn., for a few weeks' hunt. He hunted a
good deal in town, and became somewhat acquainted with the fair sex as
well as the chickens and other ducks of the prairies. However, Sunday
came, and while the other wretches went out snooting on Sunday, our
friend hied himself to the Sabbath school. His presence was observed
by a teacher, and he, by the way, observed _her_ presence, and being a
stranger and a pious looking man, she invited him to help her teach her
class. He accepted, and seated beside the fair teacher, he chipped in an
occasional remark to the class, while he looked into the soulful, pious
eyes of the handsome teacher. She introduced him to the superintendent
as a pious young man from Wisconsin, and the superintendent invited him
to address the school.
It was new business to our friend, but he said he never had anything
sawed off onto him unless he stood it like a man, so he got up, with
the girl's eyes on him, and told the children the beautiful story of the
cross, and how Samson went up in a chariot of fire, and Adam was found
in the bullrushes by a Sunday school teacher, while he was shooting blue
wing teal, and how Noah and Sat Clark built an ark and coasted around
Uoricon lake and landed on Iron Ridge and sent out a canvas-back duck
to see if there was any living thing this side of Schleisingerville, and
how the duck came back with a sprig of wild celery in its bill which it
had found at Lake Koshkonong.
He told how the locusts came down on the democratic party and lected
Garfield, and counseled the children to be good and they would have a
soft thing. He said evil communications corrupted two of a kind, and
they could not be too careful with their pennies, and advised them to
give up the soul destroying habit of buying taffy, and try and lead a
different life, and put their money into the missionary box, where the
wicked cease from troubling, and give us a rest.
He would have gone on all the afternoon, only the superintendent of
the Sunday school told the children that the exercises would close
with “Little Drops of Water,” and our friend sat down and wiped the
perspiration from his brow.
The teacher said that his words had opened new beauties to her in the
Scriptures, though he was a little off on some of his statistics. He
told her, by way of apology, that she couldn't expect much religion from
a man that came from so strong a democratic county as Dodge county. This
may be all a lie, but if it is, we got it from one of the best liars of
the State.