[Sglib-general] Found that it covered several o

[Gacke <pa...@be...>]

 so many turkeys. It was the combined whirr of their wings that woke him
so effectually; many an older person on the frontier has been deceived
by the same sound, supposing it to be thunder, so heavy a noise do these
wild fowl of the prairies make when numbers of them fly together. "Won't
mother be glad!" he whispered to himself; "and what a dinner she'll have
to-day!" And descending the ladder, he took from the hooked pegs
overhead his father's old shot-gun, where it had hung unused for months,
and from a little box some powder and shot, and a percussion cap; then
loading in haste, he rested the weapon on the window-sill, that he might
take steady aim, and fired at the fowl. A terrible report followed, and
Tom came to himself to find his mother bathing his forehead, and his
sisters crying. The gun was out of order, and, being also overloaded,
had blown off the lock, burning his face, and stunning him by the
recoil. Poor Tom returned to consciousness to suffer. His face began
rapidly to swell, and presented a frightful appearance, so blackened was
it by the powder, and the smarting was intense. Mrs. Jones, in her
isolated life, had been too many times thrown on her own resources to be
wholly overcome by the disaster. Her chief anxiety was lest Tom's eyes
were destroyed,