Drilling Hatchet

DRILLING HATCHET. (See also, DRILLING, RIFLES, SHOTGUNS) The Drilling as manufactured had great utility for hunting: being a combination gun that could bring down a boar as easily as a duck and keep both carcasses profitable. Shortening the Drilling and adding a hatchet was common among brigands, as it turned the combination gun from an elegant hunting tool into an all-purpose murder weapon.

Letter to Franklin Kinney
Author: Jodie Cranston
Single loose sheet, 8.5 x 11 in.
2/2

Cousin Frankie,

I may be four months your junior, but I am surely taller than you. I wager that I can walk across your river without it even coming up to my chin! In fact, I'll even wager my slice of my mom's pecan pie, since I am so certain

The farm is very quiet these days. I hope you will visit soon to bring some cheer and make me laugh. Nobody makes me laugh anymore. My family hasn't been talking a lot, so I am glad to hear from you, cousin. I was listening to the adults talking from my bed and I believe Aunt Mara and Aunt Hannah both went to New Orleans, so they did move away. But there was a man who I hadn't heard before and he said some words I didn't understand.

I hope you come and visit soon, for I think my family is going to move away as well, far away from Louisiana. Do you think moving away is why your adults are so sad too? Do you think we'll be moving to the same place? Gosh that would be lovely, would it not?

Maybe it will be so lovely that Mother and Father will start sleeping again! The words they have started singing at night scare me. One time I heard a third voice that sounded like Auntie Mara. She said take your hand in mine, and I wanted to see her so badly. I ran downstairs and saw Father's eyes were black while Mother painted things on the floor. She had bandages on her arms to not get them stained. Mother hates our arms being dirty when we make breakfast

Now I stay in bed and close my ears every night.

Jodie