All our school-books were extravagantly illustrated with drawings of
every kind of sailing-vessel, and every boy owned some sort of craft
whittled from a block of wood and trimmed with infinite
pains,--sloops, schooners, brigs, and full-rigged ships, with their
sails and string ropes properly adjusted and named for us by some old
sailor. These precious toy craft with lead keels we learned to sail on
a pond near the town. With the sails set at the proper angle to the
wind, they made fast straight voyages across the pond to boys on the
other side, who readjusted the sails and started them back on the
return voyages. Oftentimes fleets of half a dozen or more were
started together in exciting races.
Our most exciting sport, however, was playing with gunpowder. We made
guns out of gas-pipe, mounted them on sticks of any shape, clubbed our
pennies together for powder, gleaned pieces of lead here and there and
cut them into slugs, and, while one aimed, another applied a match to
the touch-hole. With these awful weapons we wandered along the beach
and fired at the gulls and solan-geese as they passed us.
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