“It seemed to Tommy that he came from a very bloody race.”
Tommy peered through the opening at the opaque skies, straining to catch sight of the birds which, if the hunters were lucky, might drop down to feed and thus be blasted from the sky. This was supposed to be fun, but Tommy didn’t see anything fun about it. It was cold and wet and gloomy. If he moved, his father’s hand would stay him; if he spoke, he was hushed. Nobody could say a word of even move quickly for fear it would alarm the birds, who knew the sound of human voices meant trouble. The waiting was interminable. If this was a man’s world, Tommy thought he’d just as soon remain a boy.
—Our eight-year-old hero, Tommy MacAllister, describing his trip hunting in William McPherson’s Testing the Current, a novel set in northern Michigan during the late 1930s. Tommy declines to eat the caught game, but doesn’t oppose meat bought at the store.
