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Quail By The Hundred's, With Temptation Knocking!!!

A Short Story by

A. N. "Andy" McMinn

"Just back up to that old pecan tree boy, take the shotgun, put it up to your shoulder, close your eyes, and pull the trigger", PaPa said.

Shucks this thing is bigger than I am, I'm thinking as I follow his directions. Besides that, the old Belgium double barrel smoothbore 12 gauge seemed to weigh more than I did. A man ain't very big when he's only 7 years old. But being the adventuresome youngster I am, I'd try anything.

I did as he said, closed my eyes, and let'er go. I didn't realize I had a finger on each trigger and pulled them both at once. I thought I had fired a cannon. I've heard the big tanks firing at Camp Wolter's, but that was nothing compared to this. My ear's were ringing as I bounced off the tree. I say bounced, but actually I literally flew about 10 feet. "Hey that was alright PaPa", I said, rubbing my shoulder and picking myself up off the ground. "Can I go huntin now Papa?"

"We'll see", PaPa stated, with a big grin on his face. "You can carry the gun around the farm and pretend your hunting and the time will come when you can even have a shell or two".

"Thank's Papa", I said still rubbing my shoulder and wondering what my Granny was gonna say when she saw the pretty rainbow shades of purple and blue my shoulder had turned.

Sure enough, when I was taking my Saturday night bath in the old wash tub in front of the old wood stove, Granny let out a shriek like a banshee and hollered at PaPa. "Buster, what've you done now, you trying to kill the boy"?

"Nope" PaPa said, "Just trying to let him grow up, why I was carrying that old gun when I was his age, killing rabbits and puttin food on the table! Time the youngster learned to hunt like a man, he's 7 years old now, so quit worrying so much". "Not only that but he goes fox hunting with the men every Saturday night, so's if he's big enough to go out with the men, then he's big enough to lug along the old shotgun".

"Yeah, and I can tell from the language he's been using that he has been goin fox hunting with you and the men on Saturday night. Next thing I know you'll have him taking a snort of your moon shine".

"I ain't hurt Granny" I said, rubbing my purple and blue shoulder but thinking to myself that this growing up business is a pretty tough job.

Finished my Saturday night bath, got a good rub down with liniment, all the while listening to PaPa get one of my Granny's million dollar lectures, and was anxious to get in bed, between the down quilts. I wasn't about to tell my Granny that my shoulder was so sore I couldn't even turn my head to the right without hurtin. Maybe I'd be too sore to have to go to church tomorrow. Having to attend church, sit on the front row, and listen to that old preacher shouting "hell and brimstone", talking about sins, and going to hell if you don't mend your ways, all the time staring down at me, was not my idea of how to have fun on Sunday mornings.

My hunting companion at this time was one of the finest, coon chasing, fox chasing, skunk killing, rabbit chasing, bird finding, possum treeing, biscuit eating hounds in Texas. He had more crosses than a Heinz cur. I named him after royalty..... "Dawg". I knew he had good blood lines as he had color, by color I mean he had at least 15 shades of color in his scar covered coat. Part of one ear was missing but that just gave him class.

Dawg went everywhere I went and would have loved to have slept in bed with me except Granny wouldn't allow him in the house. She would give me the table scraps to feed him but other than that she, for some reason, had no use for him.

Trying to figure out why Granny didn't like Dawg was hard for me to do. The only possible reason I could think of was an incident in the garden when Dawg was just a pup.

Granny was in the garden, bent over, picking green beans. Well along comes Dawg and wanders lazily over to investigate. Granny was unaware Dawg and I were anywhere around. Well sir, he up and cold-nosed her right then and there. I never knew my Granny could scream so loud, let alone jump so high.. She threatened to kill me and old Dawg both if we didn't make tracks. Afterwards every time I mentioned what a good dog he was she would mumble something about "she didn't know how good he was but he had the coldest nose in Texas". I always took that as a compliment for Dawg, he could cold track anything. I guess I was having a hard time understanding grown-ups .

Dawg did have one fault. He would fight anything that walked on four legs. He was forever starting a fight with my Cousin Billy's dog. Billy and I could never break up these fights. I asked my PaPa for advice. To Granny's dismay I always followed PaPa's advice.

PaPa told me that the next time Dawg and Billy's dog got in a fight for me to sneak up behind Billy's dog and stick my finger in his butt. PaPa said Billy's dog would forget all about fighting, and that he would let go of Dawg. Shortly afterwards I followed PaPa's advice.

Billy's dog had Dawg on the ground, as usual, chewing on him. With his rump up in the air, I sneaked up behind him, observed the bulls eye and bingo, stuck my finger right in his butt. PaPa was right, I've never seen a dog lose interest or turn another dog loose so fast. I can state, from first hand experience, that it's damn hard to get your finger out of a big dog's butt when you're running around in a circle with a big dog chawin on your leg.

I later told PaPa that his advice really worked but it also got me a smelly finger and a 50 pound dog hanging off my ankle.. I'd never seen PaPa laugh so much. Like I stated, I'll never understand grown-ups and I'll be awful careful about following his advice in the future.

I lugged that old shotgun around the farm for months without firing a shot. I must have killed a hundred meadow larks, rabbits and other creatures, none of them any worse for the wear. Being in my formative years I began to get certain ideas. I knew PaPa kept his shotgun shells hidden behind a loose brick in the old chimney. I also knew the razor strap was hanging alongside the loose brick.

I had designated chores on the farm while visiting. One of them was feeding the chickens and quail, another was slopping the hogs. PaPa was raising quail for the government , the reason escapes my mind at the moment, except he told me he got a nickel for each one he raised. He had literally hundreds of them. When I fed them they would gather around in front of me feeding on the grain I was throwing to them. Old Dawg always accompanied me when I was doing chores but never bothered or chased anything.

Every time I fed those darn quail I could just imagine my Granny fixin me a big plate of fried quail, with hot biscuits and pear preserves on the side. The more I thought about it the better it sounded.

Finally I could no longer stand the temptation. Early one Sunday morning before church I sneaked into the front room, removed the loose brick in the chimney and helped myself to 2 shotgun shells. I also observed the razor strap hanging alongside.

For another week I roamed around the farm, with the two shells in the old shotgun, never pulling the hammers back, but pretending to shoot meadow larks. The challenge to shoot meadow larks was no longer a priority for me as I was planning on shooting me some quail when the opportunity presented itself.

It did, several days later PaPa instructed me to feed the chickens and quail as he had to go into town to the feed store. Yes Sir, PaPa, you can depend on me.

As soon as PaPa was down the road and out of sight I took the shotgun, the two shells, loaded the gun, got my bucket of grain and away I went to do my duty. As usual the quail all gathered around me as I fed them. Now no one had ever told me there was more than a single pellet in a shotgun shell. So for good measure I decided I could kill one or two if I shot both shells. Back came the double hammers. I took aim a little ways out from me as I didn't want to shoot Dawg instead of a few quail, and let go. One thing I hadn't noticed was that I had fingers on both triggers and both barrels fired at once. After picking myself up off the ground, and looking to see where Dawg had disappeared, I observed a sight to behold. Boy I would be eating quail for weeks.

I had string in my overall pockets so I began picking up quail and stringing them by their feet. I was thinking I could feed everyone in the family with this many quail. There were at least 35 or 40 quail on my string as I proudly drug them and marched back to the kitchen to find my Granny to help me pick and clean my prize.

Needless to say, it didn't work out the way I had planned. I got a good beating with the razor strap when PaPa got back from town, my hunting privileges were suspended PaPa told me, "until I was at least 100 years old". My Granny didn't think it was fair that he made me take a shovel and bury the quail. One consolation tho, was that Dawg later dug them up, and at least he got to eat a few quail.

This is the second of my collection of non-fiction short stories about the most memorable period of my life. The late 30"s and early 40's were rough times for everyone. However, close family ties, good moral values, and a desire to make the most of what we had, (which wasn't much in material wealth),stern discipline and allowing kids to be kids, soon made a kid a man. Born and raised in Mineral Wells, Texas, fortunate to have farmers as Grandparents, I had many an opportunity as a youngster to roam the country along theBrazos River. My intention is to leave the short stories for my grandkids. Perhaps they will provide an insight to the family values of yesteryear, values that seem to have escaped a majority of this younger generation.

I hope you enjoy reading the stories. Since I've now finally retired I'm working on a few more such as the fond memories of fox hunting trips on a cold fall night with my PaPa, attending a KKK meeting (derned old fools thought just because they were wearing a sheet over their head their voices weren't recognized) prior to the hunt to keep things lively.

Then there was the time, in later years, as a young sailor, fishing off Key West, Florida in in a heavy fog, in the Devil's Triangle, and perhaps seeing things which were a figment of my imagination, or were they?

I'm not a professional writer and don't pretend to be, never tried my hand at it, but what the heck, maybe someone will get a kick out of the stories, and the stories will bring back a few precious memories of their own.

I have since given the old double barrel smothbore to my eldest son. However, every time I go quail hunting I still remember my first quail hunting experience. One might state that the razor strap made a lasting impression. By the way, in less than two weeks after the quail hunting expedition, I was again carrying the old shotgun but only shooting meadow larks, rabbits, and a few skunks (yet another story about my days as a Trapper). You know, for some reason PaPa didn't have to remind me more than once that his government quail were off limits for me and old Dawg.

Story 1 All Fish Are Trout & There Ain't No Catch & Release

Story 3 "Ducks Is Ducks".

Andy's "Home Page".