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Updated: May 12, 2025
I am myself a quick shot, too quick if anything, yet my first barrel was exploded a moment after Tom Draw's second; the other followed, and I had the satisfaction of bringing both my birds down handsomely; then up went Harry's piece the bevy being now twenty or twenty-five yards distant cocking it as it rose, he pulled the trigger almost before it touched his shoulder, so rapid was the movement; and, though he lowered the stock a little to cock the second barrel, a moment scarcely passed between the two reports, and almost on the instant two quail were fluttering out their lives among the bog grass.
Bid her come up to Draw's to-morrow night I've got a red and yellow frock for her a deuce of a concern!"
Tom Draw's gun, as I well believe, was at his shoulder when they rose; at least his first shot was discharged before they had flown half a rood, and of course harmlessly: the charge must have been driven through them like a single ball; his second barrel instantly succeeded, and down came two birds, caught in the act of crossing.
And now I say, Harry, you surely do not intend to trundle us off to Tom Draw's to-night without a drink at starting? I see Timothy has got the drag up to the door, and the horses harnessed, and all ready for a start." "Yes! yes! all that's true," answered Harry, "but take my word for it, the liquor case is not put in yet. Well, Timothy," he went on, as they reached the door, "that is right.
"Ya ha! yah ha ha yaah!" and amid a most discordant chorus of African merriment, we passed by a neat farm-house shaded by two glorious locusts on the right, and a new red brick mansion, the pride of the village, with a flourishing store on the left and wheeled up to the famous Tom Draw's tavern a long white house with a piazza six feet wide, at the top of eight steep steps, and a one-story kitchen at the end of it; a pump with a gilt pineapple at the top of it, and horse-trough, a wagon shed and stable sixty feet long; a sign-post with an indescribable female figure swinging upon it, and an ice house over the way!
When we left Tom Draw's it had been, as we thought, finally decided that we were for this bout to visit that fair village no more, but when that worthy announced his own determination to accompany us on our homeward route, and when we had taken into consideration the fact, that, independent of Tom's two hundred and fifty weight of solid flesh, we had two noble bucks, beside quail, ruffed grouse, woodcock, and rabbit almost innumerable to transport, in addition to our two selves and Timothy, with the four dogs, and lots of luggage when we, I say, considered all this, it became apparent that another vehicle must be provided for our return.
I was not startled at the irreverence of the expression, however, as sacred names were familiar interjections of Mammy's, as of all her race. "Ev'y button off'n these draw's," Mammy answered to my alarmed question alarmed because I anticipated some disaster to my wardrobe. "Hit's a mortal shame. I'll take 'em home, an' Monday I'll get some buttons on Broad Street an' sew um on."
Few words were spoken for some time, unless it were a challenge to champagne, the corks of which popped frequently and furious; or a request for another snipe, or another spoonful of the sauce; while all devoted themselves to the work in hand with a sincere and business-like earnestness of demeanor, that proved either the excellence of Tom Draw's cookery, or the efficacy of the Spartan sauce which the sportsmen had brought to assist them at their meal.
"It was the middle of the winter 1832 which was, as you will recollect, of most unusual severity that I had gone up to Tom Draw's, with a view merely to quail shooting, though I had taken up, as usual, my rifle, hoping perhaps to get a chance shot at a deer.
Nor did he miss the cocktail tray at the bedside, and the litter of clothes, clothes which must have been bought in Leaping Horse, scattered carelessly about. "It don't do quitting when luck's running," he said, without a shade of censure. "A feller needs to call the limit till it turns. 'Draw's' quite a game." Alec had had doubts when John Kars' name had come up to him.
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