Use keeps your hand in, but it wouldn't do it for me; so I
make up by practising whenever I can. When I go to the woods, which
ain't as often now as I could wish, for they ain't to be found
everywhere in our great country, I enjoy it with all my heart. I enter
into it as keen as a hound, and I don't care to have the Clockmaker
run rigs on. A man's life often depends on his shot, and he ought to
be afraid of nothin'. Some men, too, are as dangerous as wild beasts;
but if they know you can snuff a candle with a ball, hand runnin',
why, they are apt to try their luck with some one else, that ain't up
to snuff, that's all. It's a common feeling, that.
"The best shot I ever knew, was a tailor at Albany. He used to be very
fond of brousin' in the forest sometimes, and the young fellows was
apt to have a shy at Thimble. They talked of the skirts of the forest,
the capes of the Hudson, laughing in their sleeve, giving a fellow a
bastin, having a stitch in the side, cuffing a fellow's ears, taking a
tuck-in at lunch, or calling mint-julip an inside lining, and so on;
and every time any o' these words came out, they all laughed like
anything.
"Well, the critter, who was really a capital fellow, used to join in
the laugh himself, but still grinnin' is no proof a man enjoys it; for
a hyena will laugh, if you give him a poke. So what does he do, but
practise in secret every morning and evening at pistol-shooting for an
hour or two, until he was a shade more than perfection itself.
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