We made the home run without incident.  Spread out in one body our game made a most imposing appearance.  Besides the 118 ducks there were 50 jacksnipe and 68 fine large wild pigeons.

Such days make us regret that we are growing old.  They rejuvenate us —­make us boys again.

Boyhood Days in Early California

My boyhood days, from the time I was five until I was fifteen years of age, were spent on a ranch in Yuba County, California.  We were located on the east side of Feather River, about five miles above Marysville.  The ranch consisted of several hundred acres of high land, which, at its western terminus, fell away about one hundred feet to the river bottom.  There were a couple of hundred acres of this river bottom land which was arable.  It was exceedingly rich and productive.  Still west of this land was a well-wooded pasture, separated from the cultivated lands by a good board fence.  The river bounded this pasture on the north and west.

In the pasture were swales of damp land, literally overgrown with wild blackberry bushes.  They bore prolific crops of long, black, juicy berries, far superior to the tame berries, and they were almost entirely free from seeds.  Many a time have I temporarily bankrupted my stomach on hot blackberry roll, with good, rich sauce.

The country fairly teemed with game.  Quail and rabbit were with us all the time.  Doves came by the thousands in the early summer and departed in the fall.  In winter the wild ducks and geese were more than abundant.  In the spring wild pigeons visited us in great numbers.  There was one old oak tree which was a favorite resting-place with them.  Sheltered by some live oak bushes, I was always enabled to sneak up and kill many of them out of this tree.

I began to wander with the gun when I was but a little over eight years old.  The gun was a long, double-barrel, muzzle-loading derelict.  Wads were not a commercial commodity in those days.  I would put in some powder, guessing at the amount, then a wad of newspaper, and thoroughly ram it home, upon top of this the shot, quantity also guessed at, and more paper.  But it was barely shoved to the shot, never rammed.  Sad experience taught me that ramming the shot added to the kicking qualities of the firearm.  How that old gun could kick!  Many times it bowled me over.  St. George Littledale, a noted English sportsman, in describing a peculiarly heavy express rifle, said, “It was absolutely without recoil.  Every time I discharged it, it simply pushed me over.”  That described my gun exactly, except that it had “the recoil.”  I deemed myself especially fortunate if I could get up against a fence post or an oak tree when I shot at something.  By this means I retained an upright position.  Armed with this gun, an antiquated powder flask, a shot pouch whose measurer was missing, and a dilapidated game bag, I spent hours in the woods and fields, shooting such game as I needed,