The soldiers, however,
were carrying firearms, which quite alarmed my brother, who never would
walk near a man who carried a gun--for if there was one thing in the
world that he was afraid of more than of being drowned, it was of being
shot with a gun, the very sight of which always made him feel most
uncomfortable. He had only used a gun once in all his life, when quite a
boy, and was so terrified on that occasion that nothing could ever
induce him to shoot again. He was staying at a farm in the country with
a cousin, who undertook to show him how to shoot a bird that was sitting
on its nest. It was a very cruel thing to do, but he loaded the gun and
placed it in my brother's hand in the correct position, telling him to
look along the barrel of the gun until he could see the bird, and then
pull the trigger. He did so, and immediately he was on the ground, with
the gun on top of him. His cousin had some difficulty in persuading him
that the gun had not gone off at the wrong end and that he was not shot
instead of the bird. It was one of the old-fashioned shot-guns known as
"kickers," and the recoil had sent him flying backwards at the moment of
the noise of the discharge--a combination which so frightened him that
he avoided guns ever afterwards.
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