I saw it there and realized what it was so I ran and loaded my pistol before it could retreat through the open door into the house where my family and friends were there. I shot at it several times before it was dead because a pistol isn't as accurate as a rifle and it was moving in distress once I started shooting. But, soon it was dead.
I had been trained like most boys I knew in the 1950s to be a crack shot with a .22 rifle or pistol by the time I was 8 years old when my Texas Grandmother gave me my Dad's old .22 Remington pump rifle. It shot about I think 17 shots when fully loaded and was sighted in well so it was accurate to 100 yards or more if you knew what you were doing.
Though I had been taught to shoot like all the men in my family going back hundreds of years who could be trusted with a firearm to only shoot animals and not people I gave up shooting things by age 15 generally speaking except in emergencies of some kind. This was at least a 400 year tradition here in the U.S. likely since the Pilgrims landed in 1620 at that time. Also, you were expected to be somewhat of an adult even at 4 years old when I grew up in the 1950s.
Since I grew up a lacto ovo Vegetarian until I was at least 32 years old I felt by age 15 that shooting living things served no real purpose and gave it up except for real emergencies. Boys were taught to kill animals that might harm or kill family or livestock for hundreds of years by the time they were 8 to 10 years old and were responsible enough to do this especially in the Western United States from about Texas west.
My father began hunting with his brothers with guns when he was 6 years old in Coos Bay Oregon. He was given a .22 rifle and his 4 year old brother was given a .22 pistol and his 9 year old brother was given a small shotgun for dove hunting that day. This would have been in 1922 when my father was 6 years old.
So, as you can see this tradition went back hundreds of years like this.
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