This one is short but it illustrates the mindset of some of the people I grew up knowing,
Old Harvey was another old timer who had raised a family on a hard scrabble farm. If it hadn’t been for his hunting ability and his old bolt action rifle there would have been times when his family would have had to go hungry. I was sitting on Harv’s porch one day when the sheriff and the game warden showed up with a warrant to search his house and seize his old rifle. A couple of weeks before Harv had been caught with an out of season deer. He had been fined and an order to forfeit his rifle had been issued. Harv just got up and went in to the house and came back out with the rifle but the bolt was gone. The sheriff looked at the rifle then up at Harv. “Where’s the bolt Harv? You know this rifle isn’t worth anything without the bolt”. Harv looked strait at the sheriff. “I lost it the day I shot that deer” “I don’t believe you Harv You’re not that careless. We’re going to have to search the house”. Harv shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside and let them in. A through search of the house, barn, pickup truck, and just about every other place on the farm that a bolt could be failed to turn up the missing bolt. Three weeks later at a sheriff’s auction Harv’s old rifle sold for a mere two dollars. The buyer was Harv. Two days later the sheriff came to harv’s house with another search warrant. He found the old rifle sitting in the closet but there was no bolt in it. Three years later Harv sold the farm and moved to Oregon. After we had helped him load the truck Harv and his wife stayed the night with us before leaving the next morning. We were sitting around, after supper, talking and I ask Harv what he had done with the bolt to his old rifle. He smiled and reached into his pocket and pulled the bolt out of his pocket. He had carried that bolt in his pocket for three years. His only comment was “The only way they were going to get that bolt was over my dead body”.
