When I was 'bout six years old we moved offen the creek to a new road up on the ridge. It was on the same farm but to another house. I had a great big, ole grey cat I called "Tom." I wanted to move him so I put him in a pillow slip so's he couldn't see where we wus takin' him so he couldn't fin' the way back. He stayed 'round his new home for a few days an' then he went back to his ole home. Mr. Duvall went and got him again for me. Not many white men would do that for a little nigger boy. He musta told Tom somethin' for he never run off no more.
Mr. Duvall usta ride a blazed-face, sarl [HW: sorrel] mare named Kit. He most al'ays taken me up behind him, 'specially if he was goin' to town. Kit was trained to hunt deer. I can't remember any deer in the country but Mr. Duvall yousta tell me 'bout 'em an 'bout the way they had their hawses trained. He said there wus a place down on Panther Lick Creek, below where we lived, that was a deer lick. The deer would come there and lick the ground close to the creek because there was salt left there by the high waters. He'd put a strap with a littel bell on 'round ole Kit's neck; an' tie her to a tree not far from this lick. Then he'd hide behin' 'nother tree close to Kit. When the deer come ole Kit'd shake her head an' the deer would raise their heads to see what the noise made by the bell was an' where it was comin' from. Then he'd shoot the deer in the head. He showed me the place where he killed the biggest buck he ever seen right here jess out o' town a little ways. He kept the horns. An' I remember seein' 'em in the attic at his house. He had an ole riffle he called "Ole Betsy" that'd been his deer rifle.
After I got to be a big boy, huntin' and fishin' was good. I never got to do any uv it except on Saturdays and Sundays. Everbody had a brush fence 'round the house to keep the stock in out o' the yard and one day I seen a big bird sail down on the fence and run under it. Mother was out in the back yard so I said to myself, I'll get the gun and kill that hawk. I taken good aim at its head and banged away. At the crack o' the gun I never heard such a flutterin' in my life. Mother come runnin' to see what was the matter and when she seen it, she said, Son, that's a pheasant. Some day you'll be a good hunter. An' guess I was for I killed lots o' pheasants, quail, squir'ls and rabbits.
Little Sammy Duvall had a pointer he called "Quail". She was the smartest dog I ever seen, but everybody had smart dogs them days. Quail'd trail birds when they was runnin' till she got clost and then circle 'round 'em an' make her stand.
Be careful there, Quail, Mr. Sammy would say. He'd nearly always get eight or ten out uv a covey an' sometimes the whole covey. I yousta go along jess to see him shoot. He hardly ever missed. There was so many quail that nobody ever thought to leave any uv a covey if he wanted that many an' they didn't get so scattered that he couldn't fin' em.
After the deer was all killed out, people trained their deer hounds to chase foxes, coons and such like. The white boys from town yousta come and get Will and young Sammy to go coon huntin'. They al'ays had ten or twelve dogs. They al'ays taken me along an' treated me jest the same as if I was as white as they was. If I got behind or out o' sight somebody was sure to say, 'Where's George'?
One night we treed three coons in a big hollow oak. They started to cut down the trees an' put me at the butt with a fire bran'. When the tree fell the coons'd come out an' I was supposed to drive 'em back with the fire, jest lettin' out one at a time so's the dogs could kill 'em. I was about half scared uv 'em and when one big feller come out I backed up an' he got by me. I throwed the fire at him an' it lit on his back an' burnt' him. I never seen a coon run so fast. But the dogs soon treed him again an' we got him. Then we come back an' the dogs picked up the trail uv another one an' we catched him. I never seed a bigger one. He was as long as this umbrella (3-1/2 ft.) The other one got away. Coon huntin' was a great sport with the boys an' men in those days.
I catched the only grey eagle that was ever seen 'round here. They was a bunch of us boys out rabbit huntin' one day one fall. The dogs got after a rabbit an' chased it across a holler out o' range. I had the only gun in the crowd an' was right after that rabbit. The dogs run over the track an' could see 'em over on the hillside jess settin' still. All at once I seen a big bird—I taken it to be a hawk, fold its wings like a man'd fold his arms 'round his body, and drop straight down on the rabbit. But the rabbit saw it too for when the eagle got there he was ten feet up the hillside. The bird hit, "boom", jest like that. But the rabbit was goin' over the hill an' the eagle musta saw him for he riz an' flew in that direction.
'You boys stay back, I'll kill that hawk. That's the biggest hawk I ever seen,' I told them. When I got to the top of the ridge I seen him settin' in the top uv a big tree. The boys stayed where I told them and I slipped along till I got pritty close enough to shoot him. He was either watchin' the rabbit or didn't think I was watchin' him for I got pritty close before he started to fly. Jess as he opened his wings I let him have it with my old muzzle loader shotgun. Down he come makin' as much noise as a whole flock o' hawks oughta made. He was alive when I got to him an' made right at me, strikin' with his claws an' bill. The dogs come when they heard the shot an' he whipped 'em off. Every time he struck one of 'em he (the dog) would holler like he'd been speared. The other boys wanted to kill it but I gotta a long pole an' got it on him so's it held him down. We'd found out by this time that one wing was broke by my shot. So we jess hold of the tips of his wings an' led him to the house. His wing spread was 'bout six or eight feet. When I got him to the house I told 'em I had the biggest hawk they ever seen. A ole man by the same of William said, "Hell that ain't no hawk, that's a grey eagle." A ole colored fiddler, named Fred Roberts, sent word he'd buy it from me. He even got so fraid he wouldn't get it that he come for it.
'What'll you take for him', he asked me, and before I could say anything he says, ‘I’ll give a dollar for him'.