Night Noises 181 



However that may have been, he had cer- 

 tainly a wonderful nose, and a still more 

 wonderful eye. If he was bidden to cut out 

 from the herd and catch one hog or sheep or 

 calf in a hundred, he did it without fail, if he 

 had to follow it all day, through and across 

 all the tracks of a populous pasture. 



Beside the home dogs, every negro on the 

 place owned from one to five. Thus the 

 Christmas guns were answered always with 

 a yelping howling chorus. Neither men nor 

 dogs thought of sleeping a wink upon Christ- 

 mas Eve. The negroes big and little got 

 home from town about midnight. You could 

 hear them singing and shouting half an hour 

 before the wagon turned in through the gate. 

 They whooped and sang more while they fed 

 the team, and later themselves. Then they 

 popped firecrackers, half a dozen at a time, 

 standing out in front of their cabins, and 

 chaffing each other at long range. Towards 

 three o'clock in the morning they touched ofF 

 the Christmas guns hollow logs with a pound 

 of powder securely plugged inside with a fuse 

 of waxed or greasy string running through a 

 gimlet hole in the plug. The Christmas 

 guns made a big awkward, blurring noise. 

 By time the echoes of it, and the dogs were 

 quiet, the gunmakers had set out, singing, or 

 rather droning hymn tunes as they went, 



