Pittsburg, September 1, 1898.
Dear Jim:
I am just back from St. Paul, where I spent a couple of days
with Teddy Worthington. Teddy and Bud Hathaway of Chicago were
going on a shooting trip in the Big Woods of Minnesota, and they
asked me to go with them. It was new deal for me, so of course I
was for it. I hired a hammerless breech-loader for seven a week,
borrowed a lot of fishing-tackle, and bought a hunting-knife with
a nickel-plated handle. It was a beaut, and stood me three fifty.
A fellow can never be too careful. Up there you are likely any
minute to come face to face with an Apache or some old left-over
Aztec rubbering around among the trees.
At the last minute Bud Hathaway's father had to die, so just Teddy
and myself went. After we left the train we rode twenty miles in
a wagon to Freshwater Lake, which was our destination. The house
where we stayed was kept by a half-breed guide named Sarpo, and
with him lived his two sons and his second wife, who was a young
white girl, and not a bad looker at that.
The next morning we started out after ducks. I made a horrible
bluff that I was one of the old boys at the business, and that
I was on to everything--till it came to loading my hammerless,
and there's where I went to the bad. I couldn't get the blamed
thing open. Teddy handed me a few of his kind little remarks,
and I got back at him with something personal. He got sore. No
thoroughbred kidder would have grown personal, but I couldn't
think of anything else at the time. There was nothing stirring
in the duck line, and for two hours we sat all hunched up in a
little boat among a lot of weeds. It was getting to be a sad
affair for me, and I was thinking of Atlantic City, and the bands
of music, and the swell dances, and trying to figure where these
hunters have the fun they are always coming home and talking
about, when suddenly along came a drove of ducks. On the square,
there must have been a million. The other members of the party
began picking them off, but your Uncle Bill is one of those wise
shooters. I waited till they were right over my head. Say! they
were so thick I couldn't see the sky. I let go with the first
barrel, right into the center of the bunch. Nit duck. Then the
second barrel went off of its own accord. I'll swear, Jim, I had
nothing whatever to do with it. Anyway, nit duck. I think if I'd
had three barrels on that gun I would have nailed a duck, a duck
and a half, or two ducks, as I was just getting good. I loaded
up, and I must have been flustered a bit, as I blew one of the
decoys clear into the next block.
Then things again assumed their usual hunter's attitude, and
after sitting for another hour we paddled over to our sail-boat
and started down the lake for the house. It was blowing pretty
hard, and the sky was blacker than Pittsburg. The skipper said
something about a squall, but it didn't hit us until we were
about two hundred yards from the dock. Then we got it, and got
it good. It was buttercups and daisies. Thunder, lightning, rain,
and all the side dishes. I'd have given eight dollars to have
seen a cable car coming along about that time. The skipper yelled
to me to ease off the larboard stay. Now, I might know something
about mince pie, but a larboard stay is not my long and hasty.
Then some one pushed me aside, and succeeded in putting things
in such excellent shape that we ran plumb through the dock. It
was great!
That night we sat around, and Sarpo and his sons told some funny
stories. My, but they were to the saddings! I told one of my best,
and nobody filtered but Teddy.
The next morning at five we took the dogs and started out after
deer. They have what they call run-ways or deer passes, and the
deer always go the same route. They ought to have better sense,
although as far as I am concerned they are perfectly safe. They
put me on one of the passes, behind a lot of underbrush. Well,
I sat and sat until I went to sleep, but I slept with one eye
open. Deadwood Dick and all the great scouts and trappers had the
one-eye-open habit. I was awakened by hearing something crack,
and there standing about twenty feet away with its side turned
to me was a deer. It must have belonged to the fair sex, as it
had no horns. Talk about shaking! I would have shaken my best
friend. I finally pulled myself together, and remembering the
ducks, I let her have both barrels at once. She kicked her feet
up in the air, turned her head, and on the level, she gave me
the laugh and cut into the woods. I believe she saw me all the
time, and knew I was a lobster.
On the way back, I met the half-breed, and we walked together.
On reaching the house we happened to glance through the window,
and there was Teddy with his arm around the young wife's waist.
Teddy always was a rubber. It was lovely cards for a while, and
Teddy worked the old gag that he was showing her how they did in
a play, but she wasn't wise enough to follow it up, so we had to
leave.
While returning on the train I made the horrible discovery that
I had been using my buckshot on the ducks and my birdshot on the
deer. I can see how the deer got away, but I'll say one thing,
and that is, that if a passing duck had ever reached his mitt out
for one of those buckshot he would have thought Rusie was doing
the pitching. He would have got it fine and daisy.
I am not for the country. They have ticks, jiggers, and gnats,
all doing a nice conservative business at once. You never had
a tick on you, did you, Jim? Well, a tick is a very busy little
cup of tea. First, he'll crawl all over you, and then select a
spot on the back directly between the shoulder blades, where you
can't reach him. I talked to a man who was up on ticks, and he
said a tick was wiser than a bedbug. Now, you take a bedbug whose
head is perfectly clear, and who hasn't been drinking or smoking
too much, and there won't be many men on Wall Street much wiser
than he is. Well, after a tick gets his place picked out he
burrows in under the skin, then dies and festers. You wouldn't
catch a bedbug standing for that martyr game.
There should be some kind of a law against gnats. About two
hundred of them will stay right in front of your eyes until one
of them gets an opening; then he'll cut in and land a jab, and
the other hundred and ninety-nine will give you the Big Minnehaha.
I had so many lumps on me when I got back to St. Paul that they
called me Pneumatic Willie.
Talk about your sylvan dells and sweet-scented fragrance! Why,
an asphalt street has a sylvan dell skinned to death, and a
twelve-percent soap factory is sweet enough for me.
Yours as ever,
Billy.
P. S.--Good night. I'm for the sleeps.