James Douglas Morrison Essay, Research Paper
The Rifle
In 1768, west of Philadelphia there was a man named Cornish McManus. He was in a
gunsmith business. He was thirty-five years old and had been an apprentice and then an assistant
to a master gunsmith, his name was John Waynewright. Cornish was a good artist. While the
time working for John Waynewright Cornish never got to do anything special to the rifles.
Later on Cornish opened his own business. He was doing well. One day a customer came
in with his daughter. It was love at first sight. They eventually got married. She was pregnant
with a baby. That meant he had to work harder to support them.
One day Cornish saw this peace of wood in his pile. As soon as he saw it he thought of
making a sweet rifle. A sweet rifle is a rifle that looks so artistic and shoots so accurate. He
spent months and months on it. He would stay up all night in the candle light just to do it. That is
part of the reasons it took him so long. Finally he was done. He went outside and shot at a log
three times. He went down and checked the log. There was only one hole in the log. He thought
to himself, that is impossible. He checked it again and there was three bullets in one hole.
He was getting low on money and supplies. So he was forced to sell the rifle. He sold it
to a guy named John Byam. Byam set off into the woods. He met up with British soldiers. They
were just going to hang a man when Byam shot one of the soldiers. When the horse the man was
sitting on heard the shot and ran out from underneath the man. The man died. The soldiers shot
at him. One of them hit his horse. So he grabbed the sattle and got on his carrying horse. They
went about a mile and came to a ravine. Cornish?s horse made it cause it was so strong. The
britishes horse?s all fell and broke there legs.
Cornish met up with these green coated men. they surrounded him. They were good
guys. They were called McNary?s Rangers. They asked him if he wanted to join them. Byam
decided he would join there group, so he fought for them for a couple of years. In one of the
battles he grew sick, then he eventually died. This women bought the rifle for her two sons that
were in the war. As it turned out, the next thing she heard was that her sons both died in the
war. she put in her attack. About two-hundred years later a man found it. He worked at a gas
station. One day a man pulled up and saw it. The man ended up a collector of guns. He traded
an Elvis picture for the Rifle. The man put the rifle on his wall. At Christmas time a kid next
door was putting up things on the tree. There was a candle next to the rifle on the wall. Nobody
throught after all those years to checked if the rifle was loaded, it was. The candle hit the dried
up gun powder and made the rifle shoot. It went through the window of the house and through
the window of the house the boy was in. It went right for his head. It hit him in the head. Before
he hit the ground he was dead. The boy?s mom killed herself because she was so depressed. His
dad through the rifle over a bridge. A guy saw him and snagged it with a fishing rod. The dad
later died in a car accident.
Cornish McManus was a artistic person, who was a gunsmith. He was a very thoughtful
person. He gave up his best creation for his wife and kid. John Waynewright was a average
person, who was making rifles just for the money. He didn?t want to experiment at all. John
Byam was a wonderer, who liked to travel. He was a really good shot. He fought in the war.
I think this story is about how people are all different. It tells a story of a rifle that went
two-hundred years. It is sad at the end. I never thought that a innocent little boy would die. The
story shows how important and dangerous guns are.
The conclusion is that if you have a gun someone or something is bound to happen one
day. It states that guns are dangerous.
Bibliography
comtons