RABBITS TO FIND.
BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.
"I say, Tad Murray, what's made you so late with your cows this morning?"
"Late? Well, I guess you'd be late if you'd had such a time as I did. It was all old Ben's fault."
"Ben's? Why, there he is now, chasing the brindled heifer. If she'd only turn on him, she could pitch him over the fence like a forkful of hay."
"He's a better cow-dog than that ragged little terrier of yours, Carr Hotchkiss; but he's an awful fellow to let into a corn field, 'specially 'bout this time of year."
"Into a corn field!"
"When there's a lot of rabbits in the shocks."
"Are there rabbits in your corn?"
"It's just alive with 'em. And Ben he gets after 'em, and the corn's all cut and shocked, and he'll tear a shock of corn to pieces in no time; and father says it's too bad, for he hasn't any time to kill rabbits."
"Tell you what, Tad, Whip's the best dog in the world for rabbits."
"Is he?"
"He wouldn't hurt a shock of corn if he scratched clean through it. I'll fetch him along soon's you get your cows in; and we'll get Dan Burrel and Eph McCormick and Frank Perry, and we'll have the biggest rabbit hunt you ever heard of."
"Don't I wish I had a gun!"
"Father's got one, but he won't let me put a finger on it."
"So's my father got one. It's a splendid good gun, too, but one of the triggers is gone, and there's a hole you could stick your finger into in the right barrel, where it got bursted once."
"We don't want any guns. You hurry your cows in. There! the brindled heifer's given Ben an awful dig."
"He won't care."
Old Ben did care, however, for he left the brindled heifer suddenly, and came back toward the boys, with his wise-looking head cocked on one side, as much as to say, "Didn't I hear you two saying something about rabbits?"
It was less than half an hour before they were telling him a good deal about that kind of game. They gathered the rest of their hunting party on their way back to Squire Murray's, only they did not waste any time going to the house. It was a shorter cut through the wheat stubble and the wood lot to the big corn field in the hollow.
Corn, corn, corn. Squire Murray said he had never before raised so good a crop in all his life. And then he had added that the rabbits and squirrels and woodchucks were likely to be his best market, for they were husking it for him, and not charging him a cent. Only they carried off all they husked without paying for it, and he was compelled to charge that part of his crop to "rabbit account."
The old squire loved a bit of fun as well as anybody, and it was a pity he could not have been in his own corn field that morning.
Tad Murray had to catch hold of old Ben the moment they were over the fence, for he half buried himself in the nearest shock of corn the first thing.
"Oh dear! if there was only one of 'em in sight, so he'd have something to run after!"
"Whip! Whip!" shouted Carr Hotchkiss. "Rabbits, Whip—rabbits!"
Whip had been dancing around the shock as if the ground under him were red-hot, and he couldn't keep his feet on any one spot for two seconds; but now he made a sudden dive into the gap from which Tad had pulled out old Ben.
"Find 'em, Whip—find 'em!"
"There's a rabbit in there somewhere," said Dan Burrel, in a loud, earnest whisper.
"Look out you don't scare him," whispered back Eph McCormick; and Frank Perry picked up a long stiff corn stalk, and began to poke it in at every crack he could find.
"Don't, Frank; you'll scare the rabbit."
"Scare him, Eph? Why, that's just what we're up to. If we don't scare him, he won't come out."
There was a loud whine from Whip at that moment, and a sound of very vigorous pawing and scratching away in out of sight.
"Do rabbits ever bite?" said Frank, excitedly.
"Rabbits? bite a dog?" said Carr, scornfully. "I'd back Whip all alone against all the rabbits Squire Murray's got."
Another whine from Whip, and more pawing and rustling in that mysterious place he had scratched into. Every boy of them wished he were in there with a double-barrelled gun or something.
"Tad," said Frank Perry, "maybe it isn't a rabbit. Maybe it's something big."
"Woodchucks?"
"Are there any 'coons around here nowadays?"
"Haven't seen any; but the rabbits are awful big ones, some of 'em."
Yelp, yelp, yelp, from the dog inside, and his voice had a smothered and anxious sound.
"He's got him!" exclaimed Tad. But he had better have kept his hold upon Ben for a moment longer. It had been pretty hard work the last minute or so, for Ben understood every sound Whip had been making. All it had meant really was: "Ben! boys! there's a rabbit here, and he keeps just about a foot ahead of me. He's three sizes smaller than I am, and he can get through the shock faster. One of you be on the look-out for him on that further side."
The instant Tad loosened his arms from around Ben's neck, the sagacious old fellow sprang forward—not at the hole where Whip went in, but straight across, where there was no hole at all, till he came to make one.
There was a big one there before any boy of them all knew what Ben was up to. How the corn stalks did fly as he pawed his way in and tore them aside with his great strong teeth! If he was not much of a hand at setting up a shock, he was a mouth and four paws at pulling one down.
"Ben! Ben!" shouted Tad. "Come here! Rabbits, Ben—rabbits! Come here, sir."
As if Ben needed anybody to say "rabbits" to him, after he had listened to all that anxious whimpering from Whip!
"Shake the shock a little," said Dan Burrel. "He's in there somewhere."
He suited the action to the word, but that was all that was needed, and down it came, flat on the ground, with a big dog and a small one and five excited boys tearing around among the ruins.
There was a rabbit there too when the shock fell over, but he came out of the confusion with a great leap, and would have made his escape entirely if it had not been for the long legs of old Ben.
There was no time given the rabbit to hunt for another hiding-place, for before the boys and Whip had quite made up their minds what had become of their game, Ben was shaking him by the back of the neck half way down the field.
"I say, boys," said Tad, "we must set this shock up again. There comes Josephus, and if we leave such a mess as this is behind us, he won't let us go after another rabbit."
Josephus was Tad's elder brother, and he had been sent down there by his mother to get a pumpkin for some pies. There were plenty of them, that had been planted among the corn, and it was easy enough to pick out a good one and go back to the house; but Joe saw what the boys were about, and he stood for a moment looking at them.
"Set it up carefully," whispered Eph McCormick; "Joe's watching us."
"We've got one rabbit, anyhow."
"I say, what's become of Whip?"
"Never mind, boys. Hurry this thing together again."
So they did, and they were so intent on repairing the mischief they had done that they did not see what Josephus and the two dogs were doing meantime.
"I've got him!"
They were all standing back and looking at their work to see if it was just as good as it had been before it tumbled, when they heard Joe shouting that to them from the other side of the field.
"I've got him! I wouldn't give much for a lot of boys that can't catch rabbits without tearing the corn to pieces. Send in the little dog every time, and wait till the rabbit comes out. The big dog's bound to catch him if you give him a fair chance."
"That's what we'll do," said Tad. "Joe's picking up his pumpkin. He's all right."
No doubt he was, but he would much rather have staid with them in the corn field than have carried that great yellow ball half a mile to the house.
There was plenty of fun after that, for both dogs and boys had learned that there was a right way to work at that kind of hunting. Before noon they had thirteen fine large rabbits hanging on the fence, and nobody could have told by the look of any shock in the field that either a dog or a boy had been through it.
"Boys," said Squire Murray, when he met them coming through the barn-yarn gate, "which of you caught the most rabbits?"
"Which of us caught the most?"
"Yes, that's what I'd like to know. Which of you is the one I want to hire to catch my rabbits for me?"
The boys looked at one another for a moment, and then Tad slowly remarked, "Well, father, I guess it's Ben. He got the first bite at every one of 'em."