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Show #U!£KRS-Jl npw/section Or we'd line up bottles by the stump and shoot them once. Shining in the sun, always full of muddy water, still they sparkled when we hit them, when they flew apart like seeds. I knew this wasn't hunting, but it wasn't play. My brother had to stay behind us, watching the late bees where they purred in sweet-weed, laughing when he heard a bottle break. Even with father's leather gloves, heavy from walnut sap and stain, he was leery of those bees, chasing them, peering into the clover where they stayed, but sure to never touch or look away. 4. We never shot a squirrel. We didn't even try. We crossed that field every fall anyway, listening for the static chatter of a few of them high in the limbs where walnuts bobbed in wind. We took the gun, and gloves, and always came back home with a gunny-sack full of nuts to shell. Later, as we cleaned our hands, father'd oil that rifle until it shone like our palms, then hang it high above his door. Those nights we must have dreamed of all we'd left behind, of walking in long fields of seeds, hundreds of them, white and shining, flying from our hand's. /*~ \ |