There is nothing that gives pious people more annoyance than to hear
shooting on Sunday on some adjacent marsh while they are worshipping,
and there is nothing much more annoying to wicked Sunday, hunters than
to have ducks fly habitually in the vicinity of a church.
Winneconne, up on the Wolf river, is about evenly divided between-church
going people and those who take more pleasure in standing behind a shot
gun. When ducks fly about Winneconne in the Spring they follow the river
up and down, and the bridge in town is a favorite place for hunters to
stand and pepper the ducks with shot.
One Sunday about three weeks ago the ducks were flying terrible, and
when the bell rung for church the bridge was pretty well covered with
hunters, and many worshippers entered the church hard by with the smell
of powder in their spring bonnets. The hunters were so interested in
the ducks of the air that they did not notice the ducks on the way to
church.
Finally the church people all got seated and the minister gave them an
excellent sermon, which was only occasionally interrupted by the good
man dodging down behind the pulpit to escape a stray charge of No. 4
shot which came through the open window. No complaint was made, and no
sarcastic remarks were made about the wicked men who were out of meat,
and were shooting up a little for dinner, though there were silent
prayers offered for the Sabbath breakers.
At last the services were over, and the chair was singing, “A charge
to keep I have,” as the minister was picking some duck shot out of his
trousers, when there was a commotion. A wounded duck had fallen on the
door step of the church and being only “winged” had fluttered into the
church, and crawled under the seats, when a couple of retriever dogs
belonging to a German rushed into the sacred edifice and went howling
under the seats after the duck, while the owner's voice could be heard
outside yelling, “Rouse mit em!”
Well, some of them, those who had clock work stockings, held their feet
up in the air to get them away from the dogs, while others jumped up
on the pews and yelled bloody murder. Some went for the windows, and a
brakeman tells us that the senior deacon fainted away.
The dogs retrieved the duck, and as the congregation came out of the
church the German went down toward the bridge wringing the neck of the
duck and kicking the dogs for not having more sense than to go right
into a church during service.
The hunters of Winneconne should be talked to by the presiding elder.
They do very wrong to shoot on Sunday.