doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Havilah Babcock's "Fallen Lady"

Babcock's story about the small gauge Parker that cured him of his hopeless shooting slump, but was discarded when he discovered to his horror that it had Damascus barrels, will make a good intro. to my "Damascus Mythology and Reality" article series. Could someone please look in his "Best Of..." and see when it was originally published?

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=191857&page=5

It would be a GREAT help if you could post the paragraph when he noticed the Damascus pattern on the barrels!

In the Gunnerman reprint of "The Best of Babcock", Fallen Lady was attributed to Field and Stream with no date. Fallen Lady also appeared in "Jaybirds Go To Hell On Friday". When I get a chance today, I will reread Fallen Lady. It was one of my favorite Babcock stories because it included Parkers, or maybe Fallen Lady was a Lefever. I don't remember. I believe Parkers have been mentioned in other Babcock works.

Drew, when I get home tonight I'll post it if someone hasn't beaten me to it by then.

OK, I pulled out my copy of "The Best of Babcock", Holt Rinehart Winston, 1974 and the fallen lady was STILL a Parker. The attribution is just "Field and Stream" with no date. However I remember reading it in Field and Stream and even now can picture the artwork showing the author in his attic pulling out the old Parker.

The moment of truth is described in the story as follows:

"Tomorrow I would give those New Englanders a lesson in the art of eye-wiping, but right now I would gloat over my beauty alone. I'd doll her up just a bit. Later I'd remove the old black paint from the barrels and have them reblued, of course, but right now I'd merely hit the high spots, like that paint smudge on the left barrel."

"Daubing it with a little paint remover, I waited a moment, then brushed the paste off. The exposed metal didn't look quite right; it seemed to have a spiral pattern. I stopped dead still, a chilling suspicion at my throat. Then, removing the forearm, I went to work vigorously with an emery cloth. Again the telltale spirals leaped at me."

"The sickening truth was irrefutable: the barrels of my precious gun were visibly, unmistakably, and irreparably Damascus, made in the old black-powder days by twisting strip steel around a mandrel, then heat-welding it. For unnumbered years Damascus barrels were highly regarded, but the coming of smokeless powder doomed them. In simple fact, nitro loads blew many of them apart, with resultant damage to the shooters." pages 145,146, Fallen Lady, "The Best of Babcock"...Geo

So sad that such an experienced and learned man as Mr. Babcock was taken in by the naysayers of the day. Too bad Sherman Bell and Tom Armbrust couldn't have conducted their research earlier.

Bingo and thank you George!

I strongly suspect "Fallen Lady" was pure fiction, or perhaps with a small grain of truth as were many of his stories. Babcock was a master of short story fiction, drawing the reader into his story in as few and concise words as possible.

"So sad that such an experienced and learned man as Mr. Babcock was taken in by the naysayers of the day."

"Fallen Lady" may be my all time personal favorite Babcock tale; but I've always thought of his Damascus Parker tale as fiction too. As besides being an avid outdoorsman, Mr. Babcock was also an astute college English professor; so I'm sure, and in spite of the black paint on those Parker barrels, the rib inscription "Damascus Steel" remained ledgible.

But as I get older and no longer have the strength and stamina I did as a youth, I find myself recalling Babcock's story "My Health is Always Better in November". That statement is something I can relate too, and as Badcock was suffering with cancer at the time he wrote that story; I see that portion of his work as having come from the heart, clearly recognizing his own mortality and coming to terms with that sad reality. I'm thankful not to be suffering with something like cancer, or worse; but with each passing year, I become more and more aware of the fact that my time here is limited.

He also wrote a story about breaking a real rascal of a Setter puppy that he had purchased for his grandson. After much trial and tribulation in training the puppy he gave the grandson the broke Setter along with a Parker sixteen. That was probably my favorite of his stories.

[quote=TwiceBarrel
So sad that such an experienced and learned man as Mr. Babcock was taken in by the naysayers of the day. Too bad Sherman Bell and Tom Armbrust couldn't have conducted their research earlier. /quote]

I made this comment on the misinformation that was prevalent at the time for I too was taken in by the naysayers and believing them to be "experts" passed up the opportunity to pick up a sweet little Parker D grade 20 gauge with those dreaded damascus barrels for the paltry sum of $250.00 in 1990. I'm still kicking myself over that one.