The morning journal-courier., 1907-12-20


 { except when when pursued Another time I was working up the slope on the sunny edge of a run. and, as drew myself up over the edge of big ! rick, I found myself face to face 1 nose to nose-with q calm. mild-eyed, cotton-tail rabbit. He did not remain calm; in fact, We were both startled, but he recovered first, and hoped softly over the side of the rock and went galloping away through the brushy bottom, while I, still kneeling watched him disappear just as Jona- than came up.
 Whats tte jokeo Nothing, only just met a rabbit He sat here, right here, and he was so rabbit-y! He looked at me just like an Easter card"
 Why didn't you shoot him?" T never thought of it. I wish you had seen how his nose twiddled! And, any how, I wouldn't shoot anything sitting up that way, like tame kitten"
 Then why din't you shoot when he ran?" Shoot rabbit running! Run ming in scallops! I couldn't"
 The fact is, I shouldn't shoot rab- bit anyway, unless driven by hunger. am not humane, but merely senti- mental about them because they soft and pretty. Once indeed, when found all my beautiful heads of lettuce neatly nibbled off down to the central stalks, I almost ahardened my heart against them, but the next time I met one of the little fellows I for gave him all,
 I believe that one of the very best things about our way of following partridge is the sense of intimacv the countryside which 1t creates-an intimacy which nothing else has ever given us.~ In most outdoor faring one sticks to the roads and paths, in fish ing one keeps to the watercourses goes around obstacles. Nothing but headlong and undertaking pursuit of a bird along path+ of his choosing would ever have given me that ac- quaintance with ledge and swamp and laurel copse that 1 now possess. know our swamp as q hippopotamus might, or--to stick to plain Yankee creatures-a mud turtle It is a very swamp swamp, with spring holes and channels and great shallow pools where the leaves from the tall swamp maples--scarlet and rose and ashes of roses-sift slowly down and float until they sink into the leaf mold beneath l have favorite paths through it as the squirrels have in the tree tops; I know where the mud is too deep to venture, where the sprawl Ing, fnoss-covered roots of the naples offer grateful support; I know the hazel fills the air with it's quaint fra grance I know the sunny, open places where the tufted ferns, shoulder high and tawny gold after the early frosts, give insecure but welcome footing; l know---too we'll indeed-the thiekets of black alder that close in about me and tug at my gun and drive me to fury
 Yes, we know that swamp and oth- CT swamps only less well. We know the rock ledges, the big~dr woods of oak and chestnut and maple and DEREA. w G hnQW lA4E A1fihNA WAANAN the great hemlocks keep the air all ways dim and still and one goes sil- ent-footed over the needle floor. We grow familiar too with all the Little things about tho cqunJrF We discov- CT new hauns of the fringed gentlan the wonderful the capeic.pas with y unbelievable blae lhat one sees nd- where else save under t0e black lash es of some Irish eyes, We dnd the shy spring orchids gone Co seed now, hut we remember and seek taem out aaain next Ma. We surprise tn spring flowers in their rart fall blos sorling--violets white asd hlie in ihe 0atn mdist bottom laada aAd Ni3icts on the dry knolls, daisles, hepaticas buttercups and anenlones--l have seen all these in a single day in taW November. We learn where yhe plG gest chestnuts are-great sllky brown Follows almost twice the size q dou athan's thumb, We discover oB land marks in the deep woods, surveyors posts. a heap ot staNes carefully pll on big rock. We find old clearin over grown now, but our feet still fea underneath the weeds the furrows let by the blow. Now and then we com upon a spot where once there mus have been a home There is no house no tinbers even, but the stone cellar is not wholly Liberated, and tho gnarled lilac bush and the apple tree stubbornly cling to a wornout llfe amidst the forest of young white oaks and chestnuts that has cosed in about them. Once we came upon little group of gravestones, only three or four, sunken in the ground and so over rown and weather-Worn that tse could read nothing. There was no sign of a human habitation but suppose they must have been placed there in the old days when the family burial ground was in one corner of the farm Itself.
 We learn to know where the springs of pure water are, yelling up out of the deep ground in tiny pool under some big rock or between the roots of a great yellow birch tree. And when the sun shines hot at noon, and lost trail and a vanished bird leaves us to the sudden realization that we are tir- ed and thirsty, we know where is the nearest water We know, too, the knack of drinking so as not to swal- low the little gnats that skim its sur face-you must blow them back ever so gently, and drink before they close in again. How good it tastes as we lie at full length on the matted brown
 ayes! How good the crackers taste 70. and the crisp apples, as we sit