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sent any encroachment, however right and legal, upon<br />
country they look upon as their own. Aside from deer<br />
hunting, in season and out, not only for food but for profit,<br />
these characters (to quote a long-time resident) "lie awake<br />
nights thinkin' up mean things they can do to people!"<br />
Thefts and acts of vandalism of all kinds were common. .<br />
Now I happen to have very definite ideas about property<br />
rights, and I let those people know that I wasn't going<br />
to stand for any nonsense. As a reply, they shot up<br />
some of my pet cats. I went to the police for assistance,<br />
but the police were not much interested. They let me under-<br />
@and that they were too busy chasing speeding automobiles<br />
on the public highways to devote much effort to<br />
stopping backwoods thuggery.<br />
On Halloween a few years ago, someone did a thorough<br />
job on the siding of my house with good-sized stones. He<br />
nearly did for me too, and for the woman who is my companion,<br />
when we went outside to investigate. A stone<br />
whistled past me, another past my companion, neither<br />
missing by more than a few inches. Again we complained<br />
to the police; but when the police could not discover the<br />
culprits or promise protection from them, we decided that<br />
we must either sell and get out, or take up shooting and<br />
stay. We decided on the latter course.<br />
The thoughts of turning to guns for self-protection probably<br />
came to me naturally, because my father loved them.<br />
When I was a child, father and mother and I were wandering<br />
all over Europe and father always carried a gun with<br />
him. He even taught me a little about shooting his revolver.<br />
But there was little opportunity for such instruction-d,<br />
anyway, my mother objected to it, so shooting<br />
faded from my life completely during those years.<br />
In 1951 I returned to the United States, bought this<br />
small Vermont farm and, in company with another woman,<br />
started this very modest vegetable-berry-live-stock operation.<br />
Neither of us was sufficiently interested in guns at<br />
that time to note that we were settling in one of the freest<br />
states in the Union so far as guns and shooting are con-.<br />
cerned, nor did either of us (Continued o[,pays 48).<br />
, v.: . -4 'T . .<br />
32<br />
Winchester shotgun is only shoul-<br />
der arm owned by farmer Douglas,<br />
is often used for potting rabbits.
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