1 62 Next to the Ground 



depends very much upon the hunter's know- 

 ing the same thing. In the old field, Joe 

 and Dan had the lay of the land by heart. 

 The big swale was full of grapes, summer 

 and winter ones, not to name crab-apples and 

 black haws and persimmons thick enough 

 on the higher ground round about the swale 

 always to furnish two or three trees fully ripe. 

 So they went straight to it, crossing open 

 breadths of sedge, with the dogs running out 

 in leaping circles upon either side. Wrong 

 worked majestically alone. Music and Damsel 

 kept together as though hunting in couple. 

 They were excellent comrades except now 

 and then, when it happened Music was taken 

 upon a night hunt and Damsel left. 



All three ran deviously, sniffing audibly, 

 and visible only when they leaped higher than 

 the sedge. It came up to the waist, in places 

 even up to the shoulders. So the hunters cried 

 lustily to the dogs : " Hi-yi ! hi-yi ! Hunt 

 him up! Hunt him up, old dog!" The 

 crying was spasmodic. There must be inter- 

 vals of silence to catch a dog's possible open- 

 ing on the trail. The trail might be struck 

 in the unlikeliest place. Brer Possum comes 

 and goes almost as crookedly as Brer Rabbit. 

 But no matter how crooked a line may be, if 

 you take a compass and keep drawing circles 

 all- over the surface it crosses, one circle is 



