The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-01-11
HEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS


 Oh. you busy. prosperous business men who came from the country years back to make your fortune in the city, how long is it since you have been rab- bit hunting?
 Sure I know that now that you drlNe nigh powered cars. live in steam heated residences. patronize the the atres, play golf and lounge at the club that you reminisce about fox hunting. but keep quiet when it comes to chas- ing rabbits.
 But, way down in your boyhood mem- ories you know that in spite of the slurs cast on rabbit hunting as being the sport of 'poor white trash' ana triggers" that you got more real pleas ure out of 1t than anything you did around the farm. Now. 'fess up Isn't it the truth?
 I have indulged in partridge shoot ing, have been in the big dove drives. I have t en heard the gobble, sobble of the wild turkey, I have also took shot at the fast flying ducks, I have | brought down the swift-winged snipe, I have fired into droves of blackbirds and seen them fall about me. have waited as the sun was going down for the robins in their roost Gin he-days when Mir Redbreast wasn't protected in the south. but whose coming brought joy to every lad with sling shot. rifle or single-barrel muz- gle loaderl.
 I have done my share of following 1 the hounds. but take 1t from me the days out in the open upon which look back with fondest dreams arc the ones when, together with lot | of other white youths and lot of dar- kies along to beat the sagebrush and tote the rabbits. I followed not on horseback but the dogs over fields and branches and hills with the sight of white tail just ahead as the dogs ran with their heads close to the ground, 1
 Come on now, some of you rich and respectable fathers in Israel whose hardest work is clipping coupons, or trying to figure where you can go to get a new pleasure, or find at least a rest from your boredom, what wouic 1 you give to be a barefooted boy once again with your favorite dog, and your chum. and pickaninny to start across country after breakfast and to come home at night tired out but happy with a bag or string of Molly Cotton- tails?
 You have had some exciting times when (yotTwere playing the market or if a devotee of the card game which has made America famous you have crooked your elbow and raked in big pot, but it wasn't equal to the thrill you got the first time you ever ran rab- bit into his hole and dug him out and proudly carried him home to show to the neighbor boys, and later to proudly strut out into the kitcnen and as special favor ask your old black
 nanny" to cook 1t for you.
 
 l
 few times when rabbit hunts were or
 ganized on a large scale and a dozer
 H more with negro helpers along se' great fields of tall broom corn on fire
 and picked off the rabbits as they scur-
 ried out for their lives, but somehow
 it never did seem just sportsmanlike
 and the sport was nothing to compare l ol,o hnn
 days when the long-eared streaks ci lightning used to lead the pack of dogs
 merry chase before they doubled.
 The old days came back to me re. , gently. I had told my two boys about |, how 20 years back--for as I remem
 Der it was in 1898. when we had thF , awful cold spell--when I was livins
 in Forsyth. and roomed in a house | that was not built for winter weather so that awoke to find that something , unusual had happened, but until I go , out from under the warm cover I dit , not know just exactly what I was III | against but when the cold began tt
 chill me to the marrow I knew that i , was zero weather.
 :.
 I dressed and went over to the hote
 for breakfast and tried to hove
 around an open gratA but only sue
 ceeded in toasting my shns while m,
 back froze. I then thought of a rab 9 bit hunt in the snow and called Ill several boys who were ready to g i, with me. and after awhile we assem t bled and struck out over the fields Q following as, best we could bunny e tracks. We had no trouble in jump
 ing enough to keep us on the run, an
 it wasn't long before l was warn
 through and through.
 . Well. the other morning my tw r boys said. Daddy, you have got t
 take us rabbit hunting.' and I sai all right, and off we started up the val
 ley towards Gate City. I used to thin the writers of adventure in the snoy f regions overworked the danger of be ing lost in the snow, but only my ex t treme familiarity with the topograph y east of Mountain Terrace, with Re l. kmountain to guide. kept me from goih l astray. and several times went in cir
 cles before l finally got headed home e wards.
 n soon forgot my business, for ou # in Gods great outdoors with the tree