"Like to go with you, d.i.c.k?" cried Uncle Joe, laying hold of the arms of his easy-chair.

"Yes, Joe, I'm afraid I have turned his head with my descriptions of collecting abroad."

To my utter astonishment, as I sat there with my face burning, and my hands hot and damp, Aunt Sophy did not say a word.

"But--but you wouldn't like to go with your Uncle Richard, Nat, would you?" said Uncle Joe.

"I can't help it, uncle," I said, as I went to him; "but I should like to go. I don't want to leave you, but I'd give anything to go collecting with Uncle d.i.c.k, anywhere, all over the world."

Uncle Joe took out his red handkerchief and sat wiping his face.

"I have turned it over in my mind a dozen times," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "and sometimes I have thought that it would be an injustice to the boy, sometimes I have concluded that with his taste for natural history, his knowledge of treating skins and setting out b.u.t.terflies and moths, it would be a shame not to give him every encouragement."

"How?" said my aunt, drily.

"By taking him with me and letting him learn to be a naturalist."

"Humph!" said my aunt; "take him with you right away on your travels?"

"Yes," said my Uncle d.i.c.k.

"But I don't think it would be right," said Uncle Joseph softly.

"Don't be stupid, Joe," said my aunt sharply; "why shouldn't the boy go, I should like to know?"

"Oh, aunt!" I cried excitedly.

"Yes, sir, and oh, aunt, indeed!" she cried, quite mistaking my meaning.

"Do you suppose that you are to stay here idling away your time all your life--and--"

"That will do," cried Uncle d.i.c.k quickly. "Nat, my boy, I have held off from taking you before; but if your Uncle Joseph will give his consent as your guardian, you shall come with me as my pupil, companion, and son, if you will, and as far as in me lies I will do my duty by you.

What say you, Joe?" he continued, as I ran to him and took his extended hands.

My aunt looked at me as if she were going to retract her permission; but she was stopped, I should say, for the first and last time in her life, by Uncle Joseph, who waved his hand and said sadly:

"It will be a great grief to me, d.i.c.k, a great grief," he said, "and I shall miss my boy Nat very, very much; but I won't stand in his light, d.i.c.k. I know that I can trust you to do well by the boy."

"I will, Joe, as well as if he were my own."

"I know it, d.i.c.k, I know it," said Uncle Joe softly; "and I can see that with you he will learn a very, very great deal. Nat, my boy, you are very young yet, but you are a stout, strong boy, and your heart is in that sort of thing, I know."

"And may I go--will you take me, Uncle d.i.c.k? Say you will."

"Indeed I will, my boy," he cried, shaking my hand warmly; "only you will have to run the same risks as I do, and stick to me through thick and thin."

"But I don't think it would be possible for him to be ready," said my aunt, who evidently now began to repent of her ready consent.

"Nonsense, Sophy!" cried Uncle d.i.c.k; "I'll get him ready in time, with a far better outfit than you could contrive. Leave that to me. Well, Nat, it is to be then. Only think first; we may be away for years."

"I don't mind, sir; only I should like to be able to write to Uncle Joe," I said.

"You may write to him once a week, Nat, and tell him all our adventures, my boy; but I don't promise you that you will always be able to post your letters. There, time is short. You shall go out with me this morning."

"Where to, uncle?" I said.

"To the gunsmith's, my boy. I shall have to fit you up with a light rifle and double shot-gun; and what is more, teach you how to use them.

Get your cap and let's go: there is no time to spare."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

HOW I LEARNED TO SHOOT.

I did not know where we were going, or how we got there, in my state of excitement; but I found myself as if in a dream handling guns and rifles that my uncle placed before me, and soon after we were in a long pa.s.sage place with a white-washed target at the end, and half a dozen guns on a table at my side.

"Look here, Nat," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "time soon steps by, my boy, and you will grow older and stronger every day, so I shall let you have both gun and rifle a little too heavy for you. You must make shift with them at first, and you will improve in their use day by day."

"Yes, uncle," I said as I looked at the beautifully finished weapons from which we were to choose.

"Did you ever fire off a gun?" said my uncle.

"No, uncle."

"You will not be afraid?"

"Will it hurt me, uncle?"

"No."

"Then I'm not afraid," I said.

He liked my confidence in his word, and nodded approval.

Just then the man with us took up one of the guns to load it, but my uncle stopped him.

"No," he said; "let him load for himself. Look, Nat, this is one of the Patent breech-loading rifles. I pull this lever and the breech of the gun opens so that I can put in this little roll, which is a cartridge-- do you see?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Now I close it, and the rifle is ready to fire. Next I reopen, take out the cartridge, and close again. Try if you can do the same."

I took the rifle, and, with the exception of being too hurried and excited, did nearly as my uncle had done.

"Now, my boy," he said, "the piece is loaded, and a loaded gun or rifle is a very dangerous thing. Never play with your piece; never trifle in any way; never let your barrel be pointed at those who are with you.

Remember those bits of advice."

"Yes, uncle."