August's Rifle

 This is copied from my post in another section but it belongs here. Chris S
August Kloppmann was born in Germany in 1865. When he graduated from Butcher's College in Hamburg he took his new wife, Emilie, and immigrated to the United States. In Europe you couldn't be free or own land unless you were rich, royal or extremely lucky but in America anyone could become a citizen and work and own land, it was a wonderful country.
By 1892 August and his wife were in Chicago and had a new daughter, Emily, and they were heading north to Wisconsin to homestead and buy land for a farm. A few years later August had his 400 acre farm and another daughter, Anna. August farmed, butchered, hunted, fished and did many other jobs to earn money, America was a great land, but you had to work hard to succeed.
When the Spanish-American War reared up in 1898, August, who took his citizenship seriously, volunteered. What August did or if he ever saw combat is a mystery but what is known is that August returned to his family and farm and brought his war rifle, an 1884 Springfield 45-70, home with him.
August raised his family, his two daughters, and they in turn grew up and raised families who grew up and raised families. By the time WWII ended August was well on in years and his farm was more of just a home than an actual farm, the land was still there but the animals and the machines were gone.
The boy first met August in the early 50's when the boy was only five. August was a white-haired old man with a clay pipe and talked with a broken accent and, actually, kind of scared or awed the young boy. What really got the boy's interest and overcame his fear, though, was an old rifle leaning in the corner by the couch the old man sat on. It was longer than the boy was tall and it was like a magnet drawing him to it. The boy, even at that age, already loved guns!
The next time the boy visited the old farm, August was gone, passed away at 86 years of a life in his new homeland. The boy spent many summers from then on with his grandmother, Emily, who had taken care of both her family and the farm with her father, August, for all those years. Emily and the boy would spend many summers at the "Farm" and the boy dragged that old rifle around almost everywhere he went until he was a teenager. He also had to learn every other gun Emily had, and there were a few because you didn't grow up in Northern Wisconsin in the 1900's without guns. They were simply a part of rural life in those days and Emily was well versed in their uses.
When the boy got discharged from the service he visited his Emily often and as the time had come, she passed her guns on to him. He was awed that she respected him and his values enough to pass treasured heirlooms on and he never forgot their past. This, then, is August's Rifle. Chris