THE MILLWOOD AND OWL'S NEST 



of hospitals and other charitable organizations. Mr. Bowditch was always 

 in the saddle, winter and summer, at about six o'clock in the morning, and 

 doubtless the first of the jumping began in getting from one part of the farm 

 to another in his daily inspection of the estate. Many a tumble have I seen 

 at these times when larking green ones — and they were all pretty green in 

 those days — or trying experiments in jumping without girths or stirrups. It 

 was easy enough to give up the latter, but the combination usually stumped 

 us, and saddle and rider would find themselves together on the ground. The 

 morning hour was the favorite one for such things, and fox-hunting came 

 naturally enough; first, I think, with hounds from the Myopia — then a very 

 young organization itself — and later with drafts from England and from 

 Canada. These gradually gave way to the 'native' or half-bred animal 

 which is the sort of hound kept at 'Millwood' today. At that time, I be- 

 lieve, there was no other riding to hounds in New England, except at 

 Myopia, and there were no particular traditions to follow. Mr. Bowditch 

 had never hunted in England nor had he visited the gentlemen hunting their 

 own hounds in the south or in the Genesee Valley, so that the details of 

 kennel management and breeding and even fox-hunting itself, were mere in- 

 cidents in the general plan of a pleasant existence. 



" Even so, many a younger and lighter man found the task of following the 

 Master, on old ' Pumpkin,' over his country at the tail of his small and undis- 

 ciplined pack, none too easy. There were plenty of foxes and little, if any, 

 wire in the early days and I verily believe that old Brown, the huntsman, 

 knew personally every fox in the country-side; and if, as was often the case, 

 we lost the hounds, he would take us either to them, or to the earth, by some 

 short cut. 



"Old Brown was, and still is, for that matter, an Englishman, and took most 

 naturally to the sport. Mounted on 'Soapsuds,' a Roman-nosed yellow 

 beast, he negotiated the country in a most marvelous manner. It could never 

 be said that he was a bold rider and it wouldn't have helped him if he had 

 been, for 'Soapsuds' flew nothing, he climbed, and he knew all the gaps 

 and short cuts. I can almost hear old Brown talking to his horse and his 

 hounds now — it was all a feature of the morning, and such mornings as those 



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