Battle with slingshots

A favorite toy was a slingshot, something easily made and a lot of fun to use.  Rubber from inner tubes was always available and the slingshot was easily made from a fork of a tree branch, sawed out of a board,, or by attaching the rubber to a single stick.  That last is the kind we used to shoot arrows so high in the sky the arrow would go out of sight.

At one time or another most boys got in trouble  with a slingshot, breaking a window or, much worse, hitting some one with a projectile, not always accidentally.  I can still remember one such time.

Revival was in progress at our country church, and the visiting preacher had a son about the age of my cousin and I.  They came to the house to play and we soon engaged in a war, my brother, who was three years younger than I, on one side and the preacher's son and my cousin  opposed.  We were using china berries as ammunition, far less dangerous than rocks but they would sting and bruise. My brother and I were being outgunned and took shelter in part of the barn. The others charged us and we fired back, almost simultaneously hitting the preacher's son and my cousin in the eye. They left rubbing their eyes and crying.

I felt bad but mostly I dreaded what was to happen to me at church that night.  It was bad enough hitting my cousin in the eye, but,  my gosh, hitting the preacher kid in the eye!  So fearing my life was over I went to church and there saw my cousin and the preacher's son, both with beautiful black eyes but both laughing about what had happened.  I don't have any memory of who that minister was but he must have remembered being a boy one time.