RECREA TION. 



345 



METEOR AND MAXIM. 

 From a painting by J. M. Tracy. By kind permission of Mr. C. Klackner, No. 7 West 28th st. , New York. 



he would stop, look at me with disgust 

 visible in every feature, and trot off home. 



A darky named Isaac, owned by the 

 gentleman at whose house I lived, was a 

 pretty fair shot, and by way of inducing 

 Brack to hunt again, I would take 

 Isaac with me. When the boy had shot 

 one or two birds, dear old Brack would 

 accept it as ample atonement for my 

 past delinquencies and go on hunting 

 for me as faithfully and lovingly as ever, 

 until things would again become so bad 

 as to be unendurable. 



Oh,that dog ! How we did love each 

 other ! Talk about human friendship. 

 There are no friendships truer, more 

 tender, or more intimate than was ours. 

 There is no human friend of that period 

 whose memory I cherish more tenderly 

 than Brack's. No one else loved me as 

 he did. He has been dead just 30 years, 

 yet there is not a spot or a scene in the 

 old neighborhood that is not dear to me 

 on account of its association with Brack. 



Last November I passed by Eastwood, 

 and there, near the old canal, was the 

 very spot where Brack, after pointing a 

 bird three times, pinned him again. It 

 was on a ditch bank, late in autumn 

 and Brack and I both saw the bird 

 squatting. I had no idea of missing 

 him again. Neither had Brack, it would 

 seem. I stepped back and took a rest 



on a fence. Brack could stand it no 

 longer. 1 fired just as he jumped. For- 

 tunately only one shot hit him, and that 

 in the nose. Yet that was nothing to 

 him — we had the bird. 



I think I shot Brack 50 times, 

 first and last, but he never seemed to 

 mind it so long as I stopped the birds. 



Then in i860, Mat Waller, of Norfolk, 

 gave me a black and white pup named 

 " Turco," because Louis Napoleon's 

 Zouaves were then the rage. Turco 

 promised to be a good one, but the war 

 broke out and he fell into the hands of 

 the Union troops when they occupied 

 my home, and so exit Turco. The next 

 *' grande affaire " I had with a dog was 

 with my dear old " Vic." This was 

 in the summer of 1865, on the eastern 

 shore of Virginia. I was about to 

 start for the University of Virginia. 

 Stopping at a wayside tavern, at 

 Pungoteague, en-route to the county 

 seat, the loveliest pointer pup you ever 

 saw ran out from behind the bar and 

 fondled me. She, like Brack, was lemon 

 and white, and her great dark eyes, and 

 beautifully dappled skin made just the 

 same impression on one as the colors of 

 a fawn, or of a little calf would. Neal 

 Taylor, long since dead and gone, was 

 her owner. Long and vainly did I plead 

 for her. The next day, at court, one of 



