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One more energetic display of my bogus spirit and "the enemy was mine." Winter came on in its duly-appointed time, bringing with it the usual quantity of wild ducks and more than the usual degree of severe cold. Charlie was an inveterate duck-shooter, and with the return of the season came the return of mud and dirt in my bowls. I determined to do as mother did.
I am free to confess and quite agree with a vivacious young woman who at the country club told me that it was very nice of me to uphold my country, but that we were "not in it" with American sports. The Presidents are often sportsmen. President Cleveland and President Harrison both have been famous, the former as a fisherman, the latter as well as the former as a duck-shooter.
the leaven That spreading in this dull and clodded earth Gives it a touch ethereal. His worship is all the more sincere because it is not self-conscious. If you were to tell the trout-fisher, or the duck-shooter, or the camper-out, that he is a worshipper of Pan, he would look at you in a kindly bewilderment. He would seem a little anxious about you, but it would be only a verbal misunderstanding.
"The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars, as he walks on a First Day loafe, and looks at the oats and rye, The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum, a confirmed case, He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bedroom; The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blurr with the manuscript; The malformed limbs are tied to the anatomist's table, What is removed drops horribly in a pail; The quadroon girl is sold at the stand the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove, The machinist rolls up his sleeves the policeman travels his beat the gate-keeper marks who pass, The young fellow drives the express-wagon I love him, though I do not know him, The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race, The western turkey-shooting draws old and young some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs, Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece; The groups of newly-come emigrants cover the wharf or levee, As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle, The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other, The youth lies awake in the cedar-roofed garret, and harks to the musical rain, The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron, The reformer ascends the platform, he spouts with his mouth and nose,
The peasants advanced one by one and knelt down, presenting their guns to the preacher, who laid them upon the altar. Galope-Chopine offered his old duck-shooter. The three priests sang the hymn "Veni, Creator," while the celebrant wrapped the instruments of death in bluish clouds of incense, waving the smoke into shapes that appeared to interlace one another.
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