once--it will be remembered that it was provided with double arms--and
thrown in the air together. At this game many good scores fell into
disintegration, for it required great quickness of manipulation to catch
both before one should reach the ground. Mr. Newmark's snap method here
stood him in good stead. When Mr. Kincaid stepped to the trap, the
stranger turned to his friend.
"Here's where the old fellow falls down, I'm afraid," said he a trifle
regretfully. "He's too deliberate for this business. I'm sorry. I'd
like to see him give Newmark a race for it."
"Deliberate!" snorted the local man.
Mr. Kincaid's preparations were as careful and as wasteful of time as
ever. But when he enunciated his famous "pool!" the stranger was treated
to a surprise. The first ball was literally snuffed into nothingness
before it had risen five feet above the trap! Then quite slowly Mr.
Kincaid followed the second to the top of its flight and broke it as
though it had been a single.
"Lord!" gasped the visitor. "He surely can't do that with any
certainty!"
"Can't he!" said the other grimly, "Watch him."
Interest soon centred on Newmark and Kincaid, as those who had made
straight scores on the singles now dropped one or more. Both the
contestants named broke their nine pair straight. Bobby sent strong
little waves of hope for a miss after each of Mr. Newmark's targets, but
without avail. Only one pair apiece remained to be shot at; and in order
that Mr. Kincaid should win the match, it would be necessary that
Newmark should miss both. This was inconceivable. Bobby threw himself
face downward in the grass, sick at heart. He made up his mind he would
not look. Nevertheless when Mr. Newmark's name was called, he sat up.
"Pull!" came Mr. Newmark's dry, incisive voice.
The balls sprang into the air. A sharp _click_ followed. Evidently a
misfire. The referee, imperturbable, stepped forward to examine the
shell. He found the primer well indented; so, in accordance with the
rules, he announced:
"No bird!"
Mr. Newmark reloaded.
"Pull!" he called again.
On the first bird he scored his first miss of the day.
"Misfire threw him off," exclaimed the spectators afterward.
And then, curiously enough, a queer current of air, springing from
nowhere, utterly abnormal, seized the dense powder smoke and whirled it
backward, completely enveloping the shooter. The obscuration was
momentary, but complete. By the time it had passed the second ball had
fallen almost to the ground. Newmark snapped hastily at it.
"Lost! Lost!" announced the scorer.
A deep sigh of emotion swept over the crowd. Bobby gripped his hands so
tightly that the knuckles turned white. He resented the intervention of
a half-dozen other contestants before Mr. Kincaid should be called; and
rolled about in an agony of impatience until his friend stepped to the
mark.
The men unconsciously straightened and removed the cigars from their
lips. Two hits would win; one miss would tie. Bobby stood up, his breath
coming and going rapidly, his sight a little blurred. But Mr. Kincaid
went through his motions of preparation, and broke the two balls, with
no more haste or excitement than if they had been the first two of the
match.
A cheer broke out. Others were still to shoot, but this decided the
winner.
"Congratulations!" said Newmark dryly as his rival stepped from the
mark.
"That's all right," replied Kincaid, "but it was sheer rank hard luck
for you."
On the way home just about sunset many teams passed the old white horse
with his old yellow cart, and his driver hunched comfortably over the
reins. Everybody shouted final chaffing, kindly congratulations as they
sped by.
Bobby, hunched alongside in loyal imitation of his companion's
attitude, glowed through and through.
"My! I'm glad you won!" he repeated again and again.
Kincaid looked straight ahead of him, his gray eyes pensive, the short
pipe shifted to the corner of his mouth. Finally he glanced down
amusedly at his ecstatic companion.
"You see, Bobby?" he said, "--until the last shot is fired."
VIII
THE FLOBERT RIFLE
Thus Bobby had passed through the extremes of hope, of anticipation, of
disappointment and of despair. The Flobert Rifle on which he had set his
heart, which he had firmly made up his mind to buy as soon as he could
save up enough on an allowance of one cent a day, had been withdrawn
from sale and offered as prize for the fall trap shooting. This had been
a severe blow, but from it Bobby had finally rallied. His father would
participate in the shoot; his father was omnipotent and invincible.
After winning the Flobert Rifle, he would undoubtedly give it to Bobby.
Then, just before the shoot Mr. Orde had been called west on business.
Bobby had been vouchsafed only the melancholy satisfaction of seeing Mr.
Kincaid, whom he liked, win out over Mr. Newmark, whom he disliked. The
rifle was in good hands; that was all any one could say about it.
But one afternoon, returning home about two o'clock, he was surprised
to find Bucephalus and the yellow cart hitched out in front, and Mr.
Kincaid sitting on the porch steps.
"No one home but the girl; so I thought I'd wait," he explained, shaking
hands with Bobby very gravely. "I brought around the new rifle," he
added further. "What do you say to driving up over the hill somewhere
and trying her?"
They drove slowly up the road of planks that gave footing over the
sand-hills. The new shiny Flobert Rifle with its gold-plated locks and
trigger guards rested between Mr. Kincaid's knees. He would not permit
Bobby to touch it, however.
When the old white horse had struggled over the grade and into the
stump-dotted country, Mr. Kincaid hitched him to the fence, and,
followed closely by the excited Bobby, climbed into a field. From his
pocket, quite deliberately, he produced a small paper target and a dozen
tacks wrapped in a bit of paper.
"We'll just nail her up against this big stub," he said to Bobby,
tacking away with the handle of his heavy pocket-knife; "and then you
can get a rest over that little fellow there."
He stepped back.
"Now let's see you open her," he said, handing over the rifle.
Bobby had long since acquired a theoretical familiarity with the
mechanism. He cocked the arm and pulled back the breech block, thus
opening the breech with its broken effect due to the springing of the
ejector.
"That's all right," approved Mr. Kincaid, pausing in the filling of his
pipe, "but you have the muzzle pointing straight at Duke."
"It isn't loaded," objected Bobby.
"A man who knows how to handle a gun," said Mr. Kincaid emphasizing his
words impressively with the stem of his pipe, "never in any
circumstances lets the muzzle of his gun, loaded or unloaded, for even a
single instant, point toward any living creature he does not wish to
kill. Remember that, Bobby. When you've learned that, you've learned a
good half of gun-handling."
"Yes, sir," said Bobby.
"Keep the muzzle up," finished Mr. Kincaid, "and then you're all right."
He led the way to the smaller stump; and nonchalantly, as though it were
not one of the most wonderful affairs in the world to own such a thing,
produced a little square red box containing the cartridges. This he
opened. Bobby gazed with the keenest pleasure on the orderly rows of
alternate copper and lead dots.
"Now," said Mr. Kincaid, "kneel down behind the stump." He rested the
rifle across it. "You know how to sight, don't you? I thought likely.
When you pull the trigger, try to pull it steadily, without jerking. Get
in here, Duke!"
Bobby knelt, and assumed a position to shoot. To his surprise he found
that his heart was beating very fast, and that his breath came and went
as rapidly as though he had just climbed a hill. He tried desperately to
hold the front sight in the notch of the hind sight, and both on the
black bull's eye. It was surprisingly difficult, considering the
simplicity of the theory. Finally he pulled the trigger for the first
time in his life.
"Snap!" said the rifle.
"Now let's see where you hit!" suggested Mr. Kincaid.
Bobby started up eagerly; remembered; and with great care laid the
Flobert, muzzle up, against the stump.
"That's right," approved Mr. Kincaid.
The bullet had penetrated the exact centre of the bull's eye!
"My!" cried Bobby delighted. "That was a pretty good shot, wasn't it,
Mr. Kincaid? That was doing pretty well for the first time, wasn't it?"
But Mr. Kincaid was lighting his pipe, and seemed quite unimpressed.
"Bullet went straight (_puff, puff_)," said he. "That's all you can say
(_puff, puff_). No _one_ shot's a good shot (_puff, puff_). Take's two
to prove it (_puff, puff_)."
He straightened his head and threw the match away.
"It's too good, Bobby, to be anything but an accident," said he kindly.
"Now come and try again."
Bobby was permitted to fire nine more shots, of which three hit the
paper, and none came near the bull's eye. He could not understand this;
for with the dead rest across the stump, he thought he was holding the
sights against the black. Mr. Kincaid watched him amusedly. The small
figure crouched over the stump was so ridiculously in earnest. At the
tenth shot he put the cover on the box of ammunition.
"Aren't we going to shoot any more?" cried Bobby, disappointed.
"Enough's enough," said Mr. Kincaid. "Ten shots is practice. More's
just fooling--at first, anyway. You can't expect to become a good shot
in an afternoon. If you could, why, where's the glory of being a good
shot?"
"I don't see what made me miss," speculated Bobby.
"I think I could tell you," replied Mr. Kincaid, "but I'm not going to.
You think it over; and next time see if you can tell me. That's the way
to learn."
"Next time!" cried Bobby, his interest reviving.
"You aren't tired of it, are you?" enquired Mr. Kincaid with mock
anxiety. "Because I've got ninety cartridges left here that I wouldn't
know what to do with."
"Oh!" cried Bobby.
"Well, then," proposed Mr. Kincaid, "I'll tell you what we'll do. You
and I will organize the--well, the Maple County Sportsman's Association,
say; and we'll hold weekly shoots. These will be the grounds. You and I
will be the charter members; but we'll let in others, if we happen to
want to."
"Papa," breathed Bobby.
"Moved and seconded that Mr. John Orde, alias Papa, be elected. Motion
carried," said Mr. Kincaid. "I'll be President," he continued. "I've
always wanted to be president of something; and you can be secretary.
You must get a little blank book, and rule it off for the scores. Then
maybe by and by we'll have a prize, or something. What do you think?"
Bobby said what he thought.
"Now," said Mr. Kincaid, opening the wooden box that ran along the floor
of the two-wheeled cart where the dashboard, had there been one, would
have been placed, "this is the next thing: when you're through shooting,
clean the gun. If you leave it over night, the powder dirt will make a
fine rust that you may never be able to get out; and rust will eat into
the rifling and make the gun inaccurate. No matter how late it is, or
how tired you are, _always clean your gun_ before you go to bed. It's
the second most important thing I can teach you. You'll see lots of men
who can kill game, perhaps, but remember this; the fellow who lets his
gun point toward no living thing but his game, and who keeps it bright
and clean, is further along toward being a true sportsman--even if he is
a very poor shot--than the careless man who can hit them."
He gave Bobby the steel wire cleaning-rod, the rags, and the oil can,
and showed him how to get all the powder residue from the rifling
grooves in the barrel.
"There," said Mr. Kincaid, folding back the half-seat, "climb in. That
settles it for to-day."
Bucephalus came to with reluctance. Going down hill he settled into a
slow steady jog, which soon covered the distance to the Orde house.
Bobby climbed out and turned to utter thanks.
"That's all right," said Mr. Kincaid. "Next time I'm going to shoot,
myself; and you'll have to rustle to beat me. Don't forget the score
book."
"When will it be?" asked Bobby.
"Oh, Thursday again," replied Mr. Kincaid. He disengaged the Flobert
from between his knees. "Here," said he; "you take this and put it away
carefully. I'll keep the ammunition," he added with a grim smile.
"Remember not to snap it. Snapping's bad for it when it is empty.
Good-bye."
He drove off down the street beneath the over-arching maples, the old
white horse jogging sleepily, the old yellow cart lurching. Over his
shoulder floated puffs of smoke from his pipe.
Bobby carried the new rifle into the house, ascended to his own room,
and sat down to enjoy it to its smallest detail. The heavy blued octagon
barrel bore an inscription which he deciphered--the maker's name, and
the patents under which the arm was manufactured. He examined the
sights, and how they were fastened to the barrel; the fall of the
hammer; the firing-pin; the mechanism of the ejector, the butt plate,
the polished stock and the manner in which it was attached to the
barrel. Over the fancy scroll of the gold-plated trigger-guard he passed
his fingers lovingly. The trigger-guard extended back along the grip of
the stock in a long thin metal strip--also gold-plated. It, too, bore an
inscription. Bobby read it once without taking in its meaning; a second
time with growing excitement. Then he rushed madly through the house
shrieking for his mother.
"Mamma, Mamma!" he cried. "Where are you? Come here!"
Mrs. Orde came--on the run--likewise the cook, and the butcher. They
found Bobby dancing wildly around and around, hugging close to his heart
the Flobert rifle.
"Bobby, Bobby!" cried Mrs. Orde. "What is it? What's the matter? Are you
hurt?"
She caught sight of the gun, leaped to the conclusion that Bobby had
shot himself and sank limply into a chair.
"See! Look here!" cried Bobby. He thrust the rifle, bottom up into her
lap. "Read it!"
On the plate behind the trigger-guard, carved in flowing script, were
these words.
_To Robert Orde from Arthur Kincaid. September 10, 1879._
IX
MR. DAGGETT
The printing press, too, was now a success. What time Bobby could spare,
he spent over his new work. In fact he would probably have printed out
all his interest in the shape of cards for friends and relatives, did
not an incident spur his failing enthusiasm. The little tin box of
printer's ink went empty. Bobby tried to buy more at Smith's where other
kinds of ink were to be had. Mr. Smith had none.
"You'd better go over to Mr. Daggett's," he advised. "He'll let you have
some."
Bobby crossed the street, climbed a stairway slanting outside a square
wooden store building and for the first time found himself in a printing
office.
Tall stands held tier after tier of type-cases, slid in like drawers.
The tops were slanted. On them stood other cases, their queerly arranged
and various-sized compartments exposed to view. Down the centre of the
room ran a long table. One end of it was heaped with printed matter in
piles and in packages, the other was topped with smooth stone on which
rested forms made up. Shelves filled with stationery, cans and the like
ran down one side the room. Beyond the table were two presses, a big and
a little. In one corner stood a table with a gas jet over it. In another
was an open sink with running water. A thin man in dirty shirt-sleeves
was setting type from one of the cases. Another, shorter man at the
stone-topped table was tapping lightly with a mallet on a piece of wood
which he moved here and there over a form. A boy of fifteen was printing
at the smaller of the presses. A huge figure was sprawled over the table
in the corner. In the air hung the delicious smell of printer's ink and
the clank and chug of the press.
Bobby stood in the doorway some time. Finally the boy said something to
the man at the table. The latter looked up, then arose and came forward.
He was of immense frame, but gaunt and caved-in from much stooping and a
consumptive tendency. His massive bony shoulders hung forward; his head
was carried in advance. In character this head was like that of a Jove
condemned through centuries to long hours in a dark, unwholesome
atmosphere--the grand, square, bony structure, the thick, upstanding
hair, the bushy, steady eyebrows, the heavy beard. But the cheeks
beneath the beard were sunken; the eyes in the square-cut caverns were
kind and gentle--and very weary.
"I want to see if I can get some ink of you," requested Bobby, holding
out his little tin box.
Mr. Daggett took the box without replying; and, opening it, tested with
his finger the quality and colour of what it had contained.
"I guess so," said he.
He led the way to one of the shelves and opened a can as big as a
bucket. Bobby gasped.
"My!" he cried; "will you ever use all that?"
Mr. Daggett nodded, and, dipping a broad-bladed knife, brought up, on
merely its point, enough to fill Bobby's tin box.
"How much is it?" asked Bobby.
"Let's see, you're Jack Orde's little boy, aren't you?" asked Daggett.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, that's all right, then. It's nothing."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Bobby, overwhelmed. The man nodded his massive
head. "Please," ventured Bobby, hesitating, "please, would you mind if I
stay a little while and watch?"
"'Course not," assured Mr. Daggett. "Stay as long as you want."
He returned to his table and forgot the little boy. An hour later he
looked up. Bobby was still there standing in the middle of the floor,
staring with all his might. Mr. Daggett pulled together his great frame
and arose.
"Have you a printing press?" he asked Bobby.
"Yes, sir," replied Bobby--"it's only a little one--to print two lines,"
he added.
"Do you like printing?"
"Oh!" burst out Bobby enthusiastically, "it's more fun than anything!"
"I'd like to see some of your work," said Mr. Daggett a flash of
amusement flickering in his deep eyes.
Bobby felt in his pocket and gravely presented a card.
_"Mr. Robert Orde.
Job Printer."_
"Why," said Mr. Daggett, surprised, "this is pretty well done. I didn't
know you could make ready so well on those little presses."
"What's 'make ready'?" asked Bobby.
"Why, regulating the impression so that all the letters are printed
evenly."
"They didn't for a long time," sighed Bobby. "I had lots of trouble."
"How did you make it go?" asked Mr. Daggett, interested.
Bobby explained the pasting of the slips of paper.
"Who taught you that?" asked Mr. Daggett sharply.
"Nobody; I just thought of it."
Two hours later, when the noon whistles blew, Bobby said good-bye to his
friend after a most interesting morning. Mr. Daggett had showed him
everything. He explained how in the type-cases the capital letters
occupied little compartments all alike and at the top, but how the small
letters were arranged arbitrarily in various-sized compartments.
"You see," said he, "we use the _e_ oftenest, so that is the largest and
is right in the middle. And here is the _a_ near it, but a little
smaller. A man has to learn where they are."
Then they watched the compositor setting type in the metal "stick" with
the sliding end. The compositor showed Bobby how he could tell when the
letters were right side up by feeling the nicks in the type, without the
necessity of looking; how he used the leads to space between the lines.
His hands flew from one compartment of the type case to the other and
the type clicked sharply. In a moment the stick was full. All three
walked over to the "composing table" of stone. Here Bobby watched the
type placed in the huge iron frame, which was then filled in with the
wooden blocks. The wedge-shaped irons locked it. Finally the block and
mallet went over the whole surface to even it down.
Bobby saw proof taken. He watched the small press in operation. It was
worked by a foot lever. The round ink plate which automatically made a
quarter turn at each impression and the double automatic ink-rollers
were a revelation to him. All the boy had to do was to insert and
withdraw the paper and push down with his foot. And the pressure was so
exact and so delicate and so brief--as though the type and the platen
coquetted without actually touching; and the imprint was so true and
clear! Even on the thin paper, the shape of the type did not stamp
through!
He could have watched for an hour, but shortly the job was finished, so
he moved on to look at the coloured inks and the fascinating variety of
papers and cards and envelopes.
This latter occupation kept him busy for a long time. He had not
realized that so many shapes and kinds of letters could exist. Mr.
Daggett told him their names and sizes--nonpareil, brevier, agate, pica,
minion and a dozen others which Bobby could not remember but which he
found exotic and attractive. Especially was he interested in the poster
type, made of wood. One letter was bigger than the whole form of his
little press.
When he left, Mr. Daggett gave him a small heavy package.
"Here you are," said he. "Here's an old font of script. It's old and too
worn for my use, but you can fool with it."
Bobby was delighted. He could hardly wait to get home before undoing the
package. The font formed a compact quadrilateral wound around the edges
with string. The letters were all arranged in order--four capital A's--A
A A A--then the Bs, and so on. It differed from his own font. The one
that came with his press had just three of each letter--large or small.
This varied. For instance, there were twenty _s_s, and only two _q_s.
Bobby procured his tweezers and began to set up his own name. He had no
stick so he got out the form with the two narrow wooden groves. To his
dismay the type would not fit. They were at least a quarter inch longer
than his own.
"Why so solemn, Bobby?" enquired his father at lunch a few minutes
later. "What's wrong?"
"My printing press isn't a real one," broke out Bobby. "It's a _toy_
one! I don't _like_ toys!"
"Oh, ho!" cried Mr. Orde. "Don't like toys, eh! How about the engine and
cars, and the tin soldiers?"
"I don't like them any more, either," insisted Bobby stoutly.
"All right," suggested Mr. Orde, winking at his wife. "Of course then
you won't want them any more: I'll just give them away to some other
little boy."
"All right," assented Bobby with genuine and astonishing indifference.
Bobby laid the little press away, but he could not resist the
fascination of Mr. Daggett's printing office. One day he came from it
bearing an inky and much-thumbed catalogue. He fairly learned it by
heart--not only the machines, from the tiny card press to the beautiful
fifty-dollar self-inker beyond which his ambition did not stray, but
also all the little accessories of the trade--the mallet, the patent
quoins, the sticks, the type-cases, the composing stones, the roller
moulds and compositions, the patent gauge-pins, the lead-cutters, the
slugs. And page after page he ran over the type in all its sizes and in
all its modifications of form. These things fascinated him and held him
with a longing for them, like revolvers and razors and carpenter's
chisels and peavies and all other business-like tools of a trade. Their
very shapes were the most appropriate and romantic shapes they could
possibly have assumed. He made lists. At first they were elaborate, and
included the big foot press and four fonts of type and three colours of
ink and fixings innumerable. They then shrank modestly by gradations
until they stuck at the 5×7 form. Bobby would not have cared for a press
smaller than that, for he wanted to print real things, like bill-heads
and whist cards and perhaps a small newspaper. His little heart throbbed
with a complete enthusiasm.
"When I grow up I think I'd like to be a printer like Mr. Daggett," he
said wistfully.
"Oh, no, you wouldn't," said Mr. Orde. "It's a poor trade--no money in
it here--and you'd have to stay in the house all the time. You wouldn't
want to be a printer, Bobby."
"Yes I would," repeated Bobby positively.
X
THE SPORTSMAN'S ASSOCIATION
The Maple County Sportsman's Association held its weekly shoots with
regularity. It consumed a great deal of Bobby's time and attention. You
see, each event was to be anticipated, and then remembered; the score
was to be rejoiced over or regretted; and the great question of how to
do better was to be considered prayerfully and long. Bobby found it to
be a more complicated problem than he would have believed possible. He
used to lie awake in bed thinking it over. Regularly before Thursday
came around he hit on a complete solution of the difficulty; and as
regularly he discovered by the actual test that something, whether of
theory or practice, still lacked.
Mr. Kincaid always listened to his ideas non-commitally.