4H AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



of the Blue Ridge. At night whippoorwills call inces- 

 santly around us. In the late spring or early summer we 

 usually take breakfast and dinner on the veranda listen- 

 ing to mocking-bird, cardinal, and Carolina wren, as well 

 as to many more common singers. In the winter the lit- 

 tle house can only be kept warm by roaring fires in the 

 great open fireplaces, for there is no plaster on the walls, 

 nothing but the bare wood. Then the table is set near 

 the blazing logs at one end of the long room which makes 

 up the lower part of the house, and at the other end the 

 colored cook Jim Crack by name prepares the deli- 

 cious Virginia dinner; while around him cluster the 

 little darkies, who go on errands, bring in wood, or fetch 

 water from the spring, to put in the bucket which stands 

 below where the gourd hangs on the wall. Outside the 

 wind moans or the still cold bites if the night is quiet; 

 but inside there is warmth and light and cheer. 



There are plenty of quail and rabbits in the fields 

 and woods near by, so we live partly on what our guns 

 bring in; and there are also wild turkeys. I spent the 

 first three days of November, 1906, in a finally success- 

 ful effort to kill a wild turkey. Each morning I left 

 the house between three and five o'clock, under a cold 

 brilliant moon. The frost was heavy; and my horse 

 shuffled over the frozen ruts as I rode after Dick. I 

 was on the turkey grounds before the faintest streak of 

 dawn had appeared in the east; and I worked as long 

 as daylight lasted. It was interesting and attractive in 

 spite of the cold. In the night we heard the quavering 

 screech owls; and occasionally the hooting of one of 



