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Sparrow Hunting:

from Mitch Allies

Around 1939 Dad's ranch in Colorado still had the old barn which had been inherited from the preceding property owner. The logs in the walls of the barn were old, weathered, and deteriorating near the ground. The roof of the barn was a straw thatch which should have probably had a steeper pitch than the it did.


wo Fingered Cane Grip
Thatched roofs require yearly maintenance and refurbishment, and this one had a tendency to leak at various points inside the structure. There was a large population of sparrows around the ranch, and they tended to cluster on the buildings and the trees that were around our house. In springtime the sparrows would build nests at different spots in the straw thatch on the barn, and this would make everyone who was dripped upon by the leaky straw roof wonder about what all was in the drip that was hitting them.

Dad must have decided that having a smaller population of sparrows would be an indirect benefit to the barn, so he would go out, usually in the winter time, with a shotgun and birdshot. If he found a cluster of sparrows perched on a rail fence, he would try to position himself to shoot down the fence-rail.

On one particular day, he was standing next to the pole fence by the corral and cocked the shotgun as he raised it to take aim down the fence. As the end of the barrel came into view, he saw a chunk of snow hanging onto it. The snow was probably obscuring his sight, so he reached forward to brush it away -- KAHBAM. I have wondered how long he stood there recovering his composure as he looked at his hand now missing the three middle fingers. He turned and headed back across the parking area to the yard area of our house.


Note Insert
Most of the ranches near U.S. 50 acquired water from a long iron pipe that attached to the city reservoir main line which passed about a quarter mile away. We didn't have indoor plumbing in the house, so the faucet for our line came out of the ground about 10 feet from the corner of the house. On this day my mother was standing there filling an enameled bucket with water to carry inside the house. As Dad approached the faucet, he had his hand behind his back, but she asked what was the matter after reading his face. Mom told me that when he exposed the bloody hand, she nearly fainted.

I believe the Model-T was not working then and my mother didn't drive much anyway. My guess is that they did one of two things: either called upon the one cross-highway neighbor for transport, or called Doc Springer in town. House calls by a medical doctor did not become antiquated until the post WWII era. Anyway, the doctor began to treat the wound and even had the fingers fetched to consider re-attachment, but found them to be too mutilated and full of dirt. So he treated the wound as best he could without the fingers - during my life, Dad always had just a thumb and little finger on that hand.

Barbara recalls Doc Springer visiting the house two or three days after the accident and producing a bottle of alcohol and a catch-basin to sterilize the wound. She says that Dad's jaw was clenched very tight as the Doc poured the alcohol over the wound. If there is a bright side at all to this story it is that Dad still had one opposing digit - even the little finger can give you a lot of dexterity.

Serendipity ---

More than two decades after that I was riding a Trailways bus home from college; in one of the interim stops, a man got on and sat near me. He was missing the same exact three fingers as Dad, but he had more of his knuckles left. I couldn't resist talking to him about this topic, and he said "Oh yes, I shot them off with a rifle".

Reflection ---

Dad adapted to the missing digits and continued on with his labors after his hand healed - he could push better than pull with that hand. He told me about his missing fingers feeling cold in the winter (phantom pain); I hardly believed this until a few years after that when an uncle lost his arm in an accident. A shotgun measures about 43 inches in length with about 29 inches from the trigger to the barrel end. One cannot reach the barrel end with the stock in one's shoulder. Inattention to details is the source of many accidents.