The Rifle By: Gary Paulsen In the story “The Rifle” that took place in 1786 there was a gunsmith named Cornish McManus. He built a rifle that had the best accuracy and finish of all time. But a problem came up; he had a new wife to care for and had to sell the rifle. He sold it to a man named John Byam. He is a patriot fighting for independence in the Revolutionary war. While he fought in the war the first person he killed was a British officer and the rest of the troops were picked off one by one.
All of Byam’s troops admired the rifle and asked to see it all the time. After the killing of the officer they had been chased to a British fort but hadn’t been seen. John sniped out one of the officer’s and hid in a nearby trench. Slowly John became known and admired by all, for his amazing skills. One day John drank dirty water and got really sick. The rest of his troops knew it was only a matter of time before he died.
Three days after he died and was buried with the others that died of sickness. After he died a woman named Sarah took it and put it in-between the floorboards in the attic and then forgot about it. The next person that moved into the house in 1993 was an editor for the newspaper and his two children discovered the rifle. Byam had greased the rifle everyday making it shine so nice and when the kids found it, it was in mint condition. The father wanted to hang it over the fireplace because he thought it was so American. But his wife hated guns and made him sell the gun to an antique shop for 25$.
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The guy had ripped him off he later sold it for 200$ to a man from Kansas. The man from Kansas sold it for 350$ to a 35 yr. old man with a baseball hat on. The hat had a national rifle association on the front of it.
He hated the government and the idea of welfare and tax’s. He knew everything about gun like the history and how they worked. He knew this was an extraordinary gun and he kept it in his closet and cleaned it all of the time. He had totally forgotten about the rifle and thought about the day’s news and how they burned all of the solders in action. He thought about how bad the government was screwed up and how he wished it would start over again. Later his car died right in front of a mechanic’s shop.
It would cost him 400$ and he knew he had that but he lied and said he didn’t have the money. He hated to spend money and would do anything not to. He asked if he would trade and he did. He traded the rifle and thought he was lying when he said that it had been carried by a solder in the revolutionary war.
The mechanic said it wasn’t enough and then Tim went into the RV and got out and Elvis painting it turned out that the mechanic was a rabid Elvis fan so he accepted the trade. When the mechanic got home he put it over the fireplace immediately his wife didn’t mind it and kept it up there. Their was a boy that lived across the street from the mechanic and one night the mechanic’s wife lit a candle and never put it out. A spark from it went into the barrel of the gun causing the gun to fire. The boy across the street was in the living room and got up to fix an ornament on the Christmas tree. When he did that the bullet from the gun went right above his right eye and he died almost instantly.
That was the story “The Rifle by, Gary Paulsen. I liked the book because it had a great storyline and it had a lot of history in it.
