I know when I got my gun, I got a lesson
with it. Father gave it to me himself, when I was fourteen, last year.
I never saw him look so serious as when he put it in my hands and said,
'Tom,' (he always calls me Tom, not Tommy, when he's in earnest)--'Tom,'
he said, 'a gun is a good thing in the right hands, a bad thing in the
wrong. A boy that is careless with a gun is worse than a born idiot; a
boy that in play points a gun, loaded or unloaded, at any person, place,
or thing, should be, and often does, land in prison. A gun is made for
three things only: the first, to shoot animals and birds for food alone,
not for sport; the second, to defend one's life from the attack of wild
beasts; the third, to shoot the tar out of the enemy when you are
fighting as a soldier for your sovereign and your flag.'"
"Bully for Tommy's father!" yelled Bert. "I hate being lectured, but
that sounds like good common sporting sense, and we'll all try to stick
by it on this hunting trip."
They were a nice lot of boys, all jolly, sturdy, manly chaps, who,
however, seldom included Billy Jackson in their outings, for every
holiday seemed to find him too busy to join them.
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