Part 10

He then communicated the scheme, by which Giles was instructed to go to the top of Blueberry Hill the next morning at six o’clock, mark out a circle on the ground, set up a tall pole in the centre with the hen at the top: he was then to walk three times round it, heels foremost, say the A B C backwards, sing a stave of Old hundred, cry cock-a-doodle-doo, and sneeze three times—all which he was assured would break the spell.

Giles took all this for gospel, and the next morning he was on the spot ready prepared at the hour. He set his fowl up in the air and went to work with the incantation; all was going on prosperously and according to rule: he had got through the psalm tune, crowed as exactly like an old rooster as one could wish, and was just taking a thumping pinch of Scotch yellow to enable him to sneeze with more effect, when casting his eyes aloft he descried a monstrous hen-hawk upon the wing in the act of making a stoop at his enchanted fowl. Giles blurted out a tremendous sternutation, but the hawk was not to be sneezed out of his prey, for before he could rub away the tears which this explosion shook into his eyes, souse came the hawk upon the hen, and both were out of sight among the woods!

Giles scratched his head and stared with wonder, but they never came back to give any account of themselves: he is certain although, that had he got through the incantation half a minute sooner, the hen would have been as safe as a thief in a mill. I have heard people say that he has still some expectation of their return, but I believe he has given up speculating in poultry. However, the memory of the story remains in those parts, and when a person does anything that shows uncommon wisdom, such as discovering that the Dutch have taken Holland, or that asses have ears, he is said to be akin to the witches, like Bob Lee’s hen.

XVI. THE SHOOTING-MATCH.

Shooting-matches are probably nearly coeval with the colonization of Georgia. They are still common throughout the Southern States; though they are not as common as they were twenty-five or thirty years ago. I was travelling in one of the north-eastern counties, when I overtook a swarthy, bright-eyed, smirky little fellow, riding a small pony, and bearing on his shoulder a long, heavy rifle, which, judging from its looks, I should say had done service in Morgan’s corps.

“Good morning, Sir,” said I, reining up my horse, as I came beside him.

“How goes it, stranger?” said he, with a tone of independence and self-confidence that awakened my curiosity to know a little of his character.

“Going driving?” inquired I.

“Not exactly,” replied he, surveying my horse with a quizzical smile, “I haven’t been a-driving _by myself_ for a year or two, and my nose has got so bad lately I can’t carry a cold-trail _without hounds to help me_.”

Alone, and without hounds as he was, the question was rather a silly one; but it answered the purpose for which it was put, which was only to draw him into conversation, and I proceeded to make as decent a retreat as I could.

“I didn’t know,” I said, “but that you were going to meet the huntsmen, or going to your stand.”

“Ah, sure enough,” rejoined he, “that _mout_ be a bee, as the old woman said when she killed a wasp. It seems to me I ought to know you.”

“Well, if you _ought_ why _don’t_ you?”

“What _mout_ your name be?”

“It _might_ be anything,” said I, with borrowed wit; for I knew my man, and knew what kind of conversation would please him most.

“Well, what _is_ it then?”

“It _is_ Hall,” said I; “but, you know, it might as well have been anything else.”

“Pretty digging,” said he, “I find you’re not the fool I took you to be; so here’s to a better acquaintance with you.”

“With all my heart,” returned I; “but you must be as clever as I’ve been, and give me your name.”

“To be sure I will, my old ’coon; take it, take it, and welcome. Anything else about me you’d like to have?”

“No,” said I, “there’s nothing else about you worth having.”

“Oh yes, there is, stranger. Do you see this?” holding up his ponderous rifle with an ease that astonished me. “If you will go with me to the shooting-match, and see me knock out the _bull’s_-eye with her a few times, you’ll agree the old _soap-stick_’s worth something when Billy Curlew puts his shoulder to her.”

This short sentence was replete with information to me: it taught me that my companion was Billy Curlew; that he was going to a _shooting-match_; that he called his rifle the _soap-stick_; and that he was very confident of winning beef with her; or, which is nearly, but not quite the same thing—_driving the cross with her_.

“Well,” said I, “if the shooting-match is not too far out of my way, I’ll go to it with pleasure.”

“Unless your way lies through the woods from here,” said Billy, “it’ll not be much out of your way; for it’s only a mile a-head of us, and there’s no other road for you to take till you get there; and as that thing you’re riding in, ain’t well suited to fast travelling among bushy knobs, I reckon you won’t lose much by going by. I reckon you hardly ever was at a shooting-match, stranger, from the cut of your coat?”

“Oh yes,” returned I, “many a time. I won beef at one, when I was hardly old enough to hold a shot-gun off-hand.”

“Children don’t go to shooting-matches about here,” said he, with a smile of incredulity. “I never heard of but one that did, and he was a little _swinge-cat_. He was born a-shooting, and killed squirrels before he was weaned.”

“Nor did I ever hear of but one,” replied I, “and that one was myself.”

“And where did you win beef so young, stranger?”

“At Berry Adam’s.”

“Why stop, stranger, let me look at you. Good. Is your name Lyman Hall?”

“The very same,” said I.

“Well, dang my buttons, if you ain’t the very boy my daddy used to tell me about! I was too young to recollect you myself; but I’ve heard daddy talk about you many a-time. I believe mammy’s got a neck-handkerchief now that daddy won on your shooting at Collen Reid’s store, when you were hardly knee-high. Come along, Lyman, and I’ll go my death upon you at the shooting-match, with the old soap-stick at your shoulder.”

“Ah, Billy,” said I, “the old soap-stick will do much better at your own shoulder. It was my mother’s notion that sent me to the shooting-match at Berry Adam’s; and, to tell you the honest truth, it was altogether a chance shot that made me win beef; but that wasn’t generally known, and most everybody believed that I was carried there on account of my skill in shooting; and my fame was spread far and wide, I well remember.

“I remember, too, perfectly well your father’s bet on me at the store. He was at the shooting-match, and nothing could make him believe but that I was a great shot with a rifle, as well as a shot-gun. Bet he would on me, in spite of all I could say, though I assured him that I had never shot a rifle in my life. It so happened too, that there were but two bullets, or rather a bullet and a half; and so confident was your father in my skill that he made me shoot the half bullet, and strange to tell, by another chance shot I like to have drove the cross, and won his bet.”

“Now I know you’re the very chap; for I heard daddy tell the very thing about the half bullet. Don’t say anything about it, Lyman, and durn my old shoes if I don’t tear the lint off the boys with you at the shooting-match. They’ll never ’spect such a looking man as you are of knowing anything about a rifle. I’ll risk your _chance_ shot.”

I soon discovered that the father had eaten sour grapes, and the son’s teeth were on edge; for Billy was just as incorrigibly obstinate in his belief of my dexterity with a rifle, as his father had been before him.

We soon reached the place appointed for the shooting-match. It went by the name of Sims’ Cross Roads, because, from the time that the first had been laid out, Archibald Sims had resided there. Archibald had been a Justice of the Peace in his day (and where is the man of his age in Georgia who has not?), consequently, he was called Squire Sims. It is the custom in this state, when a man has once acquired a title, civil or military, to force it upon him as long as he lives; hence the countless number of titled personages who are introduced in these sketches.

We stopped at the Squire’s door. Billy hastily dismounted, gave me the shake of the hand which he had been reluctantly reserving for a mile back, and leading me to the Squire, thus introduced me:

“Uncle Archy, this is Lyman Hall; and for all you see him in these fine clothes he’s a _swinge_-cat—a darn sight cleverer fellow than he looks to be. Wait till you see him lift the old soap-stick, and draw a bead upon the bull’s-eye. You _gwine_ to see fun to-day? Don’t say nothing about it.”

“Well, Mr. Swinge-cat,” said the Squire, “here’s to a better acquaintance with you,” offering me his hand.

“How goes it, Uncle Archy?” said I, taking his hand warmly: for I’m always free and easy with those who are so with me, and in this course I rarely fail to please. “How’s the old woman?”

“Egad!” said the Squire, chuckling, “there you’re too hard for me; for she died two-and-twenty years ago, and I havn’t heard a word from her since!”

“What! and you never married again?”

“Well, that’s not my fault.”

“No, nor mine _ni_ther,” said I.

Here we were interrupted by the cry of another, Rancey Sniffle.

“Hello, here! All you as wish to put in for the shooting-match come on here! for the put’n in’s _riddy_ to begin.”

About sixty persons, including men spectators, had collected; and the most of them were more or less obedient to the call of Mealy Whitecotton—for that was the name of the self-constituted commander-in-chief. Some hastened and some loitered, as they desired to be first or last on the list; for they shoot in the order in which their names are entered.

The beef was not present, nor is it ever upon such occasions; but several of the company had seen it, who all concurred in the opinion that it was good beef, and well worth the price that was set upon it—eleven dollars. A general inquiry ran, in order to form some opinion as to the number of shots that would be taken; for, of course, the price of a shot is cheapened in proportion to the increase of that number. It was soon ascertained that not more than twenty persons would take chances; but these twenty agreed to take the number of shots at twenty-five cents each.

The competitors now began to give in their names; some for one, some for two, three, and a few for as many as four shots.

Billy Curlew hung back to the last, and when the list was offered to him, five lists remained undisposed of.

“How many shots left?” inquired Billy.

“Five,” was the reply.

“Well, I take them all. Put down four shots for me, and one to Lyman Hall, paid for by William Curlew.”

I was thunderstruck; not at his proposition to pay for my shot, because that Billy meant it as a token of friendship, and he would have been hurt if I had refused to let him do me this favour; but at the unexpected announcement of my name as a competitor for beef, at least one hundred miles from the place of my residence!

I was prepared for a challenge from Billy to some of his neighbours for a private match upon me, but not for this. I therefore protested against his putting in for me, and urged every reason to dissuade him from it that I could, without wounding his feelings.

“Put it down,” said Billy, with the authority of an emperor, and with a look that spoke volumes, intelligible to every bystander. “Reckon I don’t know what I’m about?” Then, wheeling off, and muttering in an under, self-confident tone: “Dang old Roper,” continued he, “if he don’t knock that cross to the north corner of creation, and back again, before a cat can lick her foot!”

Had I been king of the cat-tribe, they could not have regarded me with more curious attention than did the whole company, from this moment. Every inch of me was examined with the nicest scrutiny; and some plainly expressed, by their looks, that they never would have taken me for such a bite. I saw no alternative, but to throw myself upon a third chance-shot; for, though by the rules of sport I would have been allowed to shoot by proxy, by all the rules of good-breeding I was bound to shoot in person. It would have been unpardonable to disappoint the expectations which had been raised on me. Unfortunately too for me, the match differed, in one respect, from those which I had been in the habit of attending in my younger days. In olden-time, the contest was carried on chiefly with _shot-guns_, a generic term, which, in those days, embraced three descriptions of fire-arms: _Indian-traders_—a long, cheap, but sometimes excellent, kind of gun, that Mother Britain used to send hither for traffic with the Indians—the _large musket_, and the _shot-gun_, properly so-called.

Rifles were, however, always permitted to compete with them, under equitable restrictions. These were, that they should be fired off-hand, while the shot-guns were allowed a rest, the distance being equal; or that the distance should be one hundred yards for the rifle to sixty for the shot-gun, the mode of firing being equal.

But this was a match of rifles exclusively; and these are by far the most common at this time.

Most of the competitors fire at the same target, which is usually a board from nine inches to a foot wide, charred on one side as black as it can be made by fire, without impairing materially the uniformity of its surface; on the darkened side of which is pegged, a square piece of white paper, which is larger or smaller, according to the distance at which it is to be placed from the marksmen. This is almost invariably sixty yards, and for it the paper is reduced to about two and a half inches square. Out of the centre of it is cut a rhombus of about the width of an inch, measured diagonally—this is the bull’s-eye, or diamond, as the marksmen choose to call it; in the centre of this is the cross. But every man is permitted to fix his target to his own taste; and accordingly, some remove one fourth of the paper, cutting from the centre of the square to the two lower corners, so as to leave a large opening from the centre downwards; while others reduce the angle more or less; but it is rarely the case that all are not satisfied with one of these figures.

The beef is divided into five prizes, or as they are commonly termed, five _quarters_, the hide and tallow counting as one. For several years after the revolutionary war, a sixth was added; the _lead_ which was shot in the match. This was the prize of the sixth best shot; and it used to be carefully extracted from the board, or tree, in which it was lodged, and afterwards remoulded. But this grew out of the exigency of the times, and has, I believe, been long since abandoned everywhere.

The three master shots and rivals were Moses Firmby, Larkin Spivey, and Billy Curlew, to whom was added, upon this occasion, by common consent, and with awful forebodings—your humble servant.

The target was fixed at an elevation of about three feet from the ground; and the judges (Captain Turner and Squire Porter) took their stands by it, joined by about half the spectators.

The first name on the catalogue was Mealy Whitecotton. Mealy stept out, rifle in hand, and toed the mark. His rifle was about three inches longer than himself, and near enough his own thickness to make the remark of Darby Chisholm, as be stept out, tolerably appropriate.

“Here comes the corn-stack and the sucker!” said Darby.

“Kiss my foot!” said Mealy; “the way I’ll creep into that bull’s eye’s a fact.”

“You’d better creep into your hind sight,” said Darby.

Mealy raised and fired.

“A pretty good shot, Meal,” said one.

“Yes, a blamed good shot!” said a second.

“Well done, Meal!” said a third.

I was rejoiced when one of the company inquired, “Where is it?” for I could hardly believe they were founding these remarks upon the evidence of their senses.

“Just on the right hand of the bull’s-eye,” was the reply.

I looked with all the power of my eyes, but was unable to discover the least change in the surface of the paper. Their report, however, was true—so much keener is the vision of a practised than an unpractised eye.

The next in order was Hiram Baugh. Hiram was like some race-horses which I have seen—he was too good not to contend for every prize, and too good-for-nothing ever to win one.

“Gentlemen,” said he, as he came to the mark, “I don’t say that I’ll win beef; but if my piece don’t blow, I’ll eat the paper, or be mighty apt to do it, if you’ll believe my rocket. My powder are not good powder, gentlemen—I bought it _thum_ (from) Teb Dagget, and gin him three quarters of a dollar a pound for it; but it are not what I call good powder, gentlemen: but if old Buck-killer burns it clear, the boy you call Hiram Baugh eats paper or comes mighty near it.”

“Well, blaze away!” said Mealy. “And be hanged, you and Teb Dagget, and your powder and Buck-killer, and your powder-horn and shot-pouch to boot! How long you gwine stand thar talking ’fore you shoot?”

“Never mind,” said Hiram, “I can talk a little and shoot a little too; but that’s nothin’. Here goes!”

Hiram assumed the figure of a note of interrogation, took a long sight, and fired.

“I’ve eat paper,” said he, at the crack of the gun, without looking, or seeming to look towards the target. “Buck-killer made a clear rocket. Where am I, gentlemen?”

“You’re just between Mealy and the diamond,” was the reply.

“I said I’d eat paper, and I’ve done it, havn’t I, gentlemen?”

“And s’pose you have!” said Mealy, “what do that amount to? You’ll no’ win beef, and never did.”

“Be that as it mout be, I’ve beat Meal ’Cotton mighty easy; and the boy you call Hiram Baugh are able to do it.”

“And what do that ’mount to? Who ain’t able to beat Meal ’Cotton! I don’t make no pretence of being nothing great no how: but you always makes out as if you were gwine to keep ’em making crosses for you, constant; and then do nothin’ but eat paper at last; and that’s a long way from eating beef ’cording to Meal ’Cotton’s notions, as you call him!”

Simon Stow was now called for.

“Oh dear!” exclaimed two or three, “now we have it. It’ll take him as long to shoot as it would take Squire Dobbins to run a track o’land.”

“Good-bye, boys,” said Bob Martin.

“Where you going, Bob?”

“Going to gather in my crop. I’ll be back again though by the time Sime Stow shoots.”

Simon was used to all this, and therefore it did not disconcert him in the least. He went off, and brought his own target, and set it up with his own hand.

He then wiped out his rifle—rubbed the pan with his hat—drew a piece of tow through the touch-hole with his wiper—filled his charger with great care—poured the powder into his rifle with equal caution—shoved with his finger the two or three vagrant grains that lodged round the mouth of his piece—took out a handful of bullets—looked them all over carefully—selected one without flaw or wrinkle—drew out his patching—found the most even part of it—sprung upon the grease-box in the breech of his rifle, greased side down—placed his ball upon it—pressed it a little—then took it up and turned the neck a little more perpendicularly downward—placed his knife-handle on it—just buried it in the mouth of the rifle—cut off the redundant patching just above the bullet—looked at it and shook his head in token that he had cut off too much or too little, no one knew which—sent down the ball—measured the contents of his gun with his first and second fingers, on the protruding part of the ramrod—shook his head again to signify that there was too much or too little powder—primed carefully—placed an arched piece of tin over the hind sight to shade it—took his piece—got a friend to hold his hat over the foresight to shade it—took a very long sight—fired, and didn’t even eat paper.

“My piece was badly _load’nd_,” said Simon, when he heard the place of his ball.

“Oh, you don’t take time,” said Mealy. “No man can shoot that’s in such a hurry as you is. I’d hardly got to sleep ’fore I heard the crack o’ the gun.”

The next was Moses Firmby. He was a tall, slim man, of rather sallow complexion: and it is a very singular fact, that though probably no part of the world is more healthy than the mountainous regions of Georgia, the mountaineers have not generally robust forms or fine complexions: they are, however, almost inexhaustible by toil.

Moses kept us not long in suspense. His rifle was already charged, and he fixed it upon the target with a steadiness of nerve and aim that was astonishing to me and alarming to all the rest. A few seconds, and the report of his rifle broke the death-like silence which prevailed.

“No great harm done yet,” said Spivey, manifestly relieved from anxiety by an event which seemed to me better calculated to produce despair.

Firmby’s ball had cut the lower angle of the diamond, directly on a right line with the cross.

Three or four followed him without bettering his shot; all of whom, however, with one exception, “eat the paper.”

It now came to Spivey’s turn. There was nothing remarkable in his person or manner. He took his place, lowered his rifle slowly from a perpendicular, until it came on a line with the mark—held it there like a vise for a moment, and fired.

“Pretty _seoigrous_, but nothing killing yet,” said Billy Curlew, as he learned the place of Spivey’s ball.

Spivey’s ball had just broken the upper angle of the diamond, beating Firmby about half its width.

A few more shots, in which there was nothing remarkable, brought us to Billy Curlew. Billy stept out with much confidence, and brought the soap-stick to an order, while he deliberately rolled up his shirt sleeves. Had I judged Billy’s chance by the looks of his gun, I should have said it was hopeless. The stock of soap-stick seemed to have been made with a case-knife, and had it been, the tool would have been but a poor apology for its clumsy appearance.

An augur hole in the breech served for a grease-box, a cotton string assisted a single screw in holding on the lock, and the thimbles were made, one of brass, one of iron, and one of tin.

“Where’s Lark Spivey’s bullet?” called out Billy to the judges, as he finished rolling up his sleeves.

“About three quarters of an inch from the cross,” was the reply.

“Well, clear the way! the soap-stick’s a coming, and she’ll be along in there among ’em presently.”

Billy now planted himself a-straddle, like an inverted V, shot forward his left hip, drew his body back to an angle of about forty-five degrees with the plane of the horizon, brought his cheek down close to the breech of old soap-stick, and fixed her upon the mark with an untrembling hand. His sight was long, and the swelling muscles of his left arm led me to believe that he was lessening his chance of success with every half second that he kept it burdened with his ponderous rifle; but it neither flagged nor wavered until soap-stick made her report.

“Where am I?” said Billy, as the smoke rose from before his eye.

“You’ve just touched the cross on the lower side,” was the reply of one of the judges.

“I was afraid I was drawing my bead a _leetle_ too fine,” said Billy. “Now, Lyman, you see what the soap-stick can do. Take her, and show the boys how you used to do when you were a baby.”