Granny was a Pretty Good Shot that Night !

In the 1940s, my mother "Mel" was a shy, timid little girl living out on a Kansas wheat farm. Nothing much exciting happened on the farm, leaving two little girls to play and investigate the fields all day. They had been raised with rumors of Indians, and the old west, and really were stuck back in time it seemed.

It was summer, and harvest time was coming up. Several of the grown sons were coming and going a lot as they worked, in preparation, for the work to come, getting equipment ready. Mel's grandmother was raising her and her sister, and being overly protective, she insisted the girls sleep in the same feather bed with her at night.

Great granny Hood was locking down the house for the night, an old farm house a mile or so from the nearest neighbors. Granny was already fairly old, with poor eyes...they often played tricks on her.

She saw something in the yard as she was locking up; someone was standing in the clearing, just staring at the house. The sun had just don't down and all granny could see was a silhouette, standing there so menacing.

She grabbed the gun that was loaded, and stuck the barrel outside the door,

"Git!! You just git on outta here!!"

Silence....

"Go On!!! Now git! I got a gun!!!"

The figure didn't move, granny was true to her word as she raised the barrel and fired the gun. The girls come running from the bedroom

"Granny, Granny... what's wrong, what happened?"

She didn't want the girls to see, so she closed the door fast, never looking outside, the girls were crying and carrying on. They were ushered back to bed, still in tears. All 3 of them crawled in the old bed. Mel lay there for hours... wide awake, waiting for something, but she didn't know what.

Mel was the first to wake up, and despite her fear, she carefully crawled out of bed...and made her way to the door and opened it...she could see something laying in the yard, she went to investigate. Her eyes couldn't believe it, there was her Uncle Delberts long johns lying on the ground, shot through with buckshot. He had hung them sometime that day, without anyone noticing, then had gone back home. Mel (my mom) said she'd never spent a longer night worrying, than that night she thought someone was dieing in the yard.