aking care
of "James." You'd think he was about four year old; made me feel like a
hired nurse.

James and me went perusing up and down that beach in the blazing sun
looking for something to shoot. We went 'way beyond Lonesome's shanty,
but there wa'n't nobody to home. Lonesome himself, it turned out
afterward, was up to the village with his horse and wagon, and his
daughter Becky was over in the wood on the mainland berrying. Todd was
a cheerful talker, but limited. His favorite remark was: "Oh, I say, my
deah man." That's what he kept calling me, "my deah man." Now, my name
ain't exactly a Claude de Montmorency for prettiness, but "Barzilla" 'll
fetch ME alongside a good deal quicker'n "my deah man," I'll tell you
that.

We frogged it up and down all the forenoon, but didn't git a shot at
nothing but one stray "squawk" that had come over from the Cedar Swamp.
I told James 'twas a canvasback, and he blazed away at it, but missed it
by three fathom, as might have been expected.

Finally, my game leg--rheumatiz, you understand--begun to give out. So
I flops down in the shade of a sand bank to rest, and the reverend goes
poking off by himself.

I cal'late I must have fell asleep, for when I looked at my watch it was
close to one o'clock, and time for us to be getting back to port. I
got up and stretched and took an observation, but further'n Clarissa's
umbrella on the skyline, I didn't see anything stirring. Brother James
wa'n't visible, but I jedged he was within hailing distance. You can't
see very fur on that point, there's too many sand hills and hummocks.

I started over toward the Greased Lightning. I'd gone only a little
ways, and was down in a gully between two big hummocks, when "Bang!
bang!" goes both barrels of a shotgun, and that Todd critter busts out
hollering like all possessed.

"Hooray!" he squeals, in that squeaky voice of his. "Hooray! I've got
'em! I've got 'em!"

Thinks I, "What in the nation does the lunatic cal'late he's shot?" And
I left my own gun laying where 'twas and piled up over the edge of that
sand bank like a cat over a fence. And then I see a sight.

There was James, hopping up and down in the beach grass, squealing like
a Guinea hen with a sore throat, and waving his gun with one wing--arm,
I mean--and there in front of him, in the foam at the edge of the surf,
was two ducks as dead as Nebuchadnezzar--two of Lonesome Huckleberries'
best decoy ducks--ducks he'd tamed and trained