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03-02 THE LONG RIFLE
Now he was ready to load the gun again, and Laura and Mary must help him. Standing straight and tall, holding the long gun upright on its butt, while Laura and Mary stood on either side of him, Pa said:
"You watch me, now, and tell me if I make a mistake."
So they watched very carefully, but he never made a mistake.
Laura handed him the smooth, polished cowhorn full of gunpowder. The top of the horn was a little metal cap. Pa filled this cap full of the gun- powder and poured the powder down the barrel of the gun. Then he shook the gun a little, and tapped the barrel, to be sure that all the powder was together in the bottom.
"Where's my patch box?" he asked then, and Mary gave him the little tin box full of little pieces of greased cloth. Pa laid one of these bits of greasy cloth over the muzzle of the gun, put one of the shiny new bullets on it, and with the ramrod he pushed the bullet and the cloth down the gun barrel.
Then he pounded them tightly against the powder. When he hit them with the ramrod, the ramrod bounced up in the gun barrel, and Pa caught it and thrust it down again. He did this for a long time.
Next he put the ramrod back in its place against the gun barrel. Then taking a box of caps from his pocket, he raised the hammer of the gun and slipped one of the little bright caps over the hollow pin that was under the hammer.
He let the hammer down, slowly and carefully. If it came down quickly —bang!—the gun would go off.
Now the gun was loaded, and Pa laid it on its hooks over the door.
When Pa was at home the gun always lay across those two wooden hooks above the door.Pa had whittled the hooks out of a green stick with his knife, and had driven their straight ends deep into holes in the log. The hooked ends curved upward and held the gun securely.
The gun was always loaded, and always above the door so that Pa could get it quickly and easily, any time he needed a gun.
When Pa went into the Big Woods, he always made sure that the bullet pouch was full of bullets, and that the tin patch box and the box of caps were with it in his pockets. The powder horn and a small sharp hatchet hung at his belt and he carried the gun ready loaded on his shoulder.
He always reloaded the gun as soon as he had fired it, for, he said, he did not want to meet trouble with an empty gun.
Whenever he shot at a wild animal, he had to stop and load the gun— measure the powder, put it in and shake it down, put in the patch and the bullet and pound them down, and then put a fresh cap under the hammer—before he could shoot again. When he shot at a bear or a panther, he must kill it with the first shot. A wounded bear or panther could kill a man before he had time to load his gun again.
But Laura and Mary were never afraid when Pa went alone into the Big Woods. They knew he could always kill bears and panthers with the first shot.
After the bullets were made and the gun was loaded, came story-telling time.
"Tell us about the Voice in the Woods," Laura would beg him.
Pa crinkled up his eyes at her. "Oh, no!" he said. "You don't want to hear about the time I was a naughty little boy."
"Oh, yes, we do! We do!" Laura and Mary said. So Pa began.
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