"Yes you have, Billy, but you did it without thinking about it."

"When?"

"Whenever you have shot a rifle at anything."

"How?"

"By taking aim. You look through one sight over the other and at the
game, and you know then that you've got it in a line with your eye
and the sights. I've only been turning the thing around, and nobody
taught me how. You've only got to _use_ your eyes and your head to
make them worth ten times as much to you as they are now."

"Seems to me," said Sid Russell, "as if your head 'n eyes, or least
ways your head is a mighty oncommon good one."

"You're right dah, Mas' Sid," said Black Joe; "you're right for
sartain. I'se dun see Mas' Sam do some mighty cur'ous things, I is. He
dun make a fire wid water once, sho's you're born. 'Sides dat, I'se
dun heah de gentlemen say's how he's got a head more 'n a yard long,
and I'm blest if I don't b'lieve it's so."

All this was said at a little distance from Sam and beyond his
hearing, but he knew very well in what estimation his companions held
him, and he was anxious to impress them, not with his own superiority,
but with the fact that the difference was due chiefly to his habit of
thinking and observing. He wanted them to improve by association with
him, and to that end he took pains to show them the advantage which a