The Hayfield Inn, a little hostelrie on the Northern "pike," is the
scene of many a turkey-shoot. Between the hill and the road, at the
foot of a ravine that runs down at right angles, room enough has
been scooped out, partly by the rains and partly by the pick, for
the house, offices and microscopic yard decorated with hollyhocks and
larkspurs. Across the highway stands a capacious barn, with open space
for wagons, and between it and the brook beyond stretches a narrow
meadow, whence a vivid imagination has extracted the name of the
caravanserai. The open space flanking the house and road is the
rifle-course, so to speak. When occupied of a mellow October afternoon
by a party of the autochthones, in their pea-jackets of blue or
hickory homespun, it presents a gay and cheery spectacle. Festooning
fence and tree around them, the Virginia creeper, or _Ampelopsis_,
shames vermilion against the mass of pines that glooms skyward beyond.
Other tints of vegetable decay fringe the brook where it winds from
side to side of the long strip of grass, green from the autumnal rain.
Little reck the assembled marksmen of Nature's stage-decorations. One
group will be mentally weighing the turkeys, another discussing the
distance--too long or too short for the peculiar powers of this or the
other individual or his weapon. Around the rude target kneel two or
three, scoring on it each man his "centre," above or below, to the
right or left, of the true centre, to counteract the ascertained
obliquity of his eye or his gun.
Pages:
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138