But the riddle he gave us one recess when we were guessing conundrums and things!—it was just awful. "Why is that dog," he asked, "that I just saw run up the road, like an article in general use in country places after night-fall?" And when we all shook our heads, says he, as grave as a judge, "Because he is the cur-I-seen." Well, I rolled off my seat at that. It certainly was the worst conundrum I ever heard.
Well, Harry taught us how to play Hare and Hounds.
"An Irish game, I suppose," says Charley Bennet. "It sounds very like something I've heard our gardener say, and he's just over from the 'gem of the sea.'"
"No gem of the sea about it," says Hunter. "It belongs to merry old England."
Hare and Hounds is the correct thing. S'pose most of you fellows know it, but I'll explain if there's any that don't. You see we take pieces of rather thick paper—tearing up old copy-books and compositions is the best, 'cause thin paper would fly too much. That's for the scent. Then the hare stuffs his pockets, or a little bag he carries slung over his left shoulder, and away he starts, dropping a handful here and a handful there, and the rest of the boys—the hounds, you know—follow him by the scent, and catch him if they can. They're bound to follow wherever he leads, and he darts behind trees, and doubles, and does all sorts of things to put them off his track. If they don't catch him, he wins, and the hounds all sit down in a row and bark mournfully. Roy Wheeler added the mournful bark part. Harry Hunter and I were the best hares in school, and the hounds used to find it awful hard to catch us.
Well, we'd played it half a dozen times, and had high old fun, when one day we had a holiday (a half-holiday, I mean) 'cause—but I won't say any more on that subject; that's Al Smith's story—and all the other fellows had cut and run as soon as they'd had their dinner, but I staid behind to finish some Latin exercises. Hen Rowe was getting ahead of me, and the Professor and Mrs. Weston were out in the strawberry patch. And when I was through I started off to join the boys, and just got to the gate, when the Professor called me back and asked me if I would carry a basket of berries to the little lame boy that lived in Cedar Lane.
Well, it was quite a distance beyond the place where the fellows were to wait for me, and I was a quarter of an hour behind time now. But I didn't think of that a minute, for there never was a better master than ours, and I'd 'a given him the whole afternoon if he'd wanted it. So I says, "Yes, sir, with pleasure," and I takes the basket, and then I suddenly remembered that the cobbler lived in Cedar Lane too, and my best shoes wanted half-soling, and I went to my room and got 'em, and was a-going out of the gate once more, when Professor Weston calls out again, "Morningstar," and comes down the path.
"Tell the boys not to play Hare and Hounds to-day. Some of the farmers have sent complaints here by Michael Snow, and Snow himself says his early pease were all trodden down. He has just gone, and I promised there should be no more trouble of the kind. If the boys have commenced playing, stop them as soon as you can. And we'll talk over the matter to-morrow; for it's a fine game, and I don't want to stop it altogether. In fact, I think of joining in myself some day, but we must manage to avoid annoying our neighbors."
"You can depend upon me, sir," says I; and off I starts again, basket of strawberries on one arm and shoes under the other. When I got almost to Michael Snow's grounds I saw the boys standing in a crowd round Harry Hunter under the big tree outside of the fence. Hunter was just strapping the bag of papers under his left arm—the bag meant a good long run; pockets, a short one—and when they caught sight of me they set up a shout like a pack of wild Indians.
"Hi! hello! here's Morningstar. Now look out for yourself, Mr. Hare."