One of our neighbors
across the Fox River killed a large number, some thirty or forty, on a
small patch of wheat, simply by lying in wait for them every night.
Our wheat-field was the first that was sown in the neighborhood. The
deer soon found it and came in every night to feast, but it was eight
or nine years before we ever disturbed them. David then killed one
deer, the only one killed by any of our family. He went out shortly
after sundown at the time of full moon to one of our wheat-fields,
carrying a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. After lying
in wait an hour or so, he saw a doe and her fawn jump the fence and
come cautiously into the wheat. After they were within sixty or
seventy yards of him, he was surprised when he tried to take aim that
about half of the moon's disc was mysteriously darkened as if covered
by the edge of a dense cloud. This proved to be an eclipse.
Nevertheless, he fired at the mother, and she immediately ran off,
jumped the fence, and took to the woods by the way she came. The fawn
danced about bewildered, wondering what had become of its mother, but
finally fled to the woods.
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