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Show MO GOOSS-SGG MBy F,dH..yg of life , . . Jim just hadn't slowed up as much as I had, but he would all right.. - That's the way It was that day at dinner. Margaret got up to go to the kitchen to clear up the dishes, and I was just sitting there smoking smok-ing my pipe and watching the old stiff dog scratch at himself as if he really had fleas. All at once Margaret Mar-garet called all ' excited, "Fred, i WHEN I SAW Jim Phillips polishing up his Winchester one day this fall, I knew it was no use to ask him and Mollie to come over to play pinochle. He sighted down the barrel be-. be-. fore. ..he said, "Nope. I got more ". important business." 'The talk kind of dribbled off then because he knew I hadn't been up to all the tramping hunting takes for quite a while. A man that has ever hunted is like a woman that crochets or makes a certain kind of pickles. He's always got something interesting interest-ing to talk about to his neighbors. Now I suddenly felt left out, and I didn't want to stand there talking to Jim. I couldn't just walk off, though without him thinking I was sore, so I said, "Anytime you want to borrow a double-barrel just let me-know." "Some gun!" he said chuckling. look out the window at the ducks, a whole flock of them!" I took a quick look and shouted, "Those aren't ducks, they're geese!" I got the old gun out of the closet and passed Margaret in the kitchen on the run as she handed me womanlike one shell. The geese were flying pretty high and just going over the top of the house when I took aim in the back yard and fired. Well, anyhow, it was good to smell powder again and to feel the big old gun stock kick against my shoulder. I broke the gun and threw out the shell and was thinking think-ing I had a good excuse to clean it again when here Margaret came around the corner of the house, lugging a great big Canadian gander gan-der by the neck. Her face was all a-grinning as she said, "You're as good a shot as you ever were, Fred. The other one fell over there In that vacant lot." I've sure been popular since then. Everybody wants to talk to me about those honkers. All but Jim. Jim hasn't had much to say. I guess he knows that someday, someday right soon now, I'm going to take that old double-barrel a-huntin'. I had had the old 2-gauge double-barrel shot gun since 189S. I knew it was out of date, like Jim had hinted, but I liked it better than any I had ever had, for it was my first real gun. It sat In the clothes closet under old winter coats. I'd take it out once in a while and clean it, but maybe I was only kidding myself that someday, someday right soon now, I'd be using it again. Just to prove- I would, I stopped in and got a license. Well, you know how a man does when he gets older. His way of life changes some. He sits at the table longer, talking over with his wife things that don't really matter. But there's no hurry. He's not going anyplace. And it's a real nice time |
