GARRETT VAN HOESEN. 137 



It was months afterward before I told him the whole 

 story, and he said: "Well, I don't know as I'd like to kill 

 a rabbit if it cried like that. The fact is I built the traps 

 some two years ago, and after some such scrape as yours 

 I left them in the barn. Some boys like to trap rabbits, 

 but I don't care anything about it; I only thought you 

 might like it." 



I am not so chicken-hearted as this story makes me 

 out. I have been a trapper for fur; will tell you about 

 this later, and I never had the slightest feeling of pity for 

 a bloodthirsty mink, marten or other animal of that class. 

 I have killed them in steel traps, found them frozen to 

 death in them, and have seen where they left a leg be- 

 hind, and never felt more pity for these merciless brutes 

 than I do for an oyster when I eat it alive. Somehow 

 the very helplessness of a rabbit appeals to a fellow, and 

 its plaintive cries I give it up! I let that rabbit go 

 that morning by the waters of Harrowgate, and that is 

 all there is of it. I have tried to make a story of it and 

 failed. 



Once or twice after the eel spearing scrape Garry 

 asked me to fish with him, and the other boys wondered 

 at it. Some years later we shot ducks, yellow-legs and 

 rail along the dead creek, an inlet on the island below 

 Douw's Point, and above the hilly dwelling of "der Yaw- 

 cum Stawts wot lives on de Hokleberic."* 



This creek is now filled up, and is known no more 

 except as a low, marshy spot. We had a good day once ; 

 two mallards, a wood duck and some half a dozen rail. 

 A very good day it was, for ducks were wild and not 



*This is a phonetic spelling, as the Albany Dutch spoke it when they 

 referred to Joachim Staats, who lived on the Hogleberg, or "hog's hack," 

 the only hill on the island, just hack of the landing known as Staats' 

 dock. 



