The boy saw the muzzle burst and flame spurting from the gun like a picture of a Civil War soldier shooting and even had time to wonder why he had never seen it before, before he heard the whistling and banging in his ear and found himself down in the leaves without knowing how he got there and even then could still hear the sound of the number-eight shot rattling away through the milky swamp and was already scrambling to get up from the embarrassment of it (for that was no place to be), but when he tried to stand, the keening in his ear spun him down again—all that before he even felt the hot
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