people didn't hear him, and think he had gone
crazy as Paddy Ryan. I never did hear any one laugh so. I thought if
he enjoyed it like that, I'd let him shoot one. I do May sometimes; so
we went to another place I knew where there was a tiger's den, and I
loaded with tiger lily bullets, gave him the gun and showed him where
to aim. After we had waited a long time out came a muskrat, and
started for the river. I looked to see why Mr. Pryor didn't shoot, and
there he was gazing at it as if a snake had charmed him; his hands
shaking a little, his cheeks almost red, his eyes very bright.

"Shoot!" I whispered. "It won't stay all day!"

He forgot how to push the ramrod like I showed him, so he reached out
and tried to hit it with the gun.

"Don't do that!" I said.

"But it's getting away! It's getting away!" he cried.

"Well, what if it is?" I asked, half provoked. "Do you suppose I
really would hurt a poor little muskrat? Maybe it has six hungry
babies in its home."

"Oh THAT way," he said, but he kept looking at it, so he made me think
if I hadn't been there, he would have thrown a stone or hit it with a
stick. It is perfectly wonderful about how some men can't get along
without killing things, such little bits of helpless creatures too. I
thought he'd better be got from the jungle, so I invited him to see the
place at the foot of the hill below our orchard where some men thought
they had discovered gold before the war. They had been to California
in '49, and although they didn't come home with millions, or anything
else except sick and tired, they thought they had learned enough about
gold to know it when they saw it.

I told him about it and he was interested and anxious to see the place.
If there had been a shovel, I am quite sure he would have gone to
digging. He kept poking around with his boot toe, and he said maybe
the yokels didn't look good.

He said our meadow was a beautiful place, and when he praised the creek
I told him about the wild ducks, and he laughed again. He didn't seem
to be the same man when we went back to the road. I pulled some sweet
marsh grass and gave his horse bites, so Mr. Pryor asked if I liked
animals. I said I loved horses, Laddie's best of all. He asked about
it and I told him.

"Hasn't your father but one thoroughbred?"

"Father hasn't any," I said. "Flos really belongs to Laddie, and we
are mighty glad he has her."

"You should have one soon, yourself," he