CHAPTER V
HOW I DUG FOR A BADGER
Next door to us was a dog named Jack. There was a wide field between our house and Jack’s and so he lived quite a way from us. But he used to come over to our place pretty often and after we got big we went over to see him. Jack and Father were great friends and used to go hunting together. Jack was a pointer and the first time I saw him I asked Mother what sort of an animal he was, because as he was so different from us I didn’t think of his being a dog too. He had very long legs and was white with brown spots, one on each side of his head and one on each side of his body and a little one where his tail began. He was dreadfully big, ten times as big as Father, and I was afraid of him at first. But I need not have been, for he was a very nice, kind dog.
[He was what the Family called a “bird dog.”] When his Master went out with a gun to hunt partridges or grouse Jack would go ahead and scent the birds in the grass or bushes, and then he would stand very still, with his tail pointing straight out behind him and his nose pointing straight out in front of him, and his Master would know that there were partridges ahead and say “Hie on!” Then Jack would creep on very quietly and all of a sudden the birds would fly up in the air and his Master’s gun would go bang-bang! and then there would be partridges for dinner. I thought it was very clever of Jack and wondered why Father didn’t hunt birds too. I asked Mother about it once and she said:
[He was what the Family called a “bird dog”]
“Every dog to his trade, my dear. Jack is a pointer and pointers were made to hunt birds. Your father is a dachshund and dachshunds were made to hunt badgers and rabbits and animals that live underground. Jack is a very fine dog, but he couldn’t dig out a badger or a fox or even a rabbit.”
“Oh,” I said, “could Father do that?”
“Of course, and so can I; and so can you when you grow up. That’s why you are made as you are. Badgers and foxes live in holes that they make far under the ground. The holes are small and they turn and twist, and that’s why your body is made so long and your legs so short; so that you can follow a fox or a badger into his hole.”
“What is a badger?” I asked.