128 



RECREATION. 



NO DAMAGES ASSESSED. 



JOHN C. MCNEILL. 



At noon I had stretched my weary length 

 on the wiregrass where the blackgums threw 

 their densest shade and where a brook 

 tinkled along over its gravel bed almost 

 under my ear. That liquid tinkle was the 

 accompaniment of sweet dreams. Half doz- 

 ing, I was conscious of the thrushes and 

 catbird, whose curiosity I had aroused, 

 perched above and about me, conferring 

 with one another. 



It was late in August. The gums were 

 shot with red, the poplars with yellow, and 

 flowering fennel filled the air with that 

 fragrance which is the infallible prophet of 

 autumn. A land of brooks, all sand- 

 bedded, clear and cool. 



But where was this and how came I 

 there? It was this way: 



Traveling through North Carolina, I 

 stopped at Aberdeen over night for railroad 

 connections. At the hotel I noticed behind 

 the desk an old friend whom I had lost 

 track of for years. 



"Hello, Powell!" I cried. "This you?" 

 "The same old 76," he answered, "and I 

 know exactly what you have come here 

 for." 



"Ah !" I wondered. "Kindly inform me." 

 "You came with no other object than to 

 take a day off with me. Hold on, now !" 

 as I started to express my regrets. "You 

 merely wanted me to inform you. I am 

 off to the sand hills before day, and you 

 are the man I'm looking for. If you don't, 

 have a high heel time I'll stand the dam- 

 ages. 



The upshot was that by peen of dawn 

 next morning we were 6 miles from town* 

 By sunrise we had reached the camping 

 ground, fed the mare, and Powell had the 

 eggs sputtering in the spider and the coffee 

 simmering in the pot. 



Breakfast being disposed of. we shoul- 

 dered our rifles and meandered along the 

 various courses of the brook in quest of 

 squirrels. Our dog was a snlit eared black 

 ard tan fox hound, who had cultivated a 

 taste for squirrels but had not acquired 

 much wisdom. Rarely did he tree without 

 having trailed half an hour, bawling sonor- 

 ously at every step and scaring the quarry 

 entirely out of reach. The woods were 

 well grown with Dost-oak, a choice resort 

 for squirrels, and the hound commonlv 

 came to his stand by one of them. After 

 the noise he had made on the trail, how- 

 ever, we wasted little time looking for the 

 squirrel where the do£ advised. If we 

 found the game at all it was usually several 

 hundred yards away in the top of a tall 

 Dine. 



^ And it was only a question of . finding 

 them, for we killed all we saw. Once a 

 drove of a dozen turkeys got up before us, 

 and with loud "tuck, tucking" passed over 

 the hill. It was out of season for turkeys 

 and we had not come prepared for them ; 

 so there was nothing for it but to watch 

 them out of sight and say au revoir. 



We followed a cow path — a deer path, 

 Powell called it — to the run of Lumber riv- 

 er, which at that point is no more than 

 a well fed creek. The swamp is almost 

 tropical in its luxuriant vegetation. Tall, 

 clean bodied trees made with their mossy 

 tops a green tinted twilight even under the 

 August sun. Thousands of birds kept the 

 swamp ringing. There, where the foot of 

 man so rarely came, I felt we had stolen a 

 march on the riotous songsters and crept 

 into their concert uninvited. The river, 

 dark with the dye of cypress roots, and 

 full of the shimmering reflection of its 

 guardian trees and its fringe of reeds, 

 twisted and growled at the horned banks 

 which blocked its way. It was solitude 

 primeval. Several purple tailed scorpions 

 stretched lazily along the knotty trunks of 

 fallen trees, basking in the flecks of sun- 

 light. They offered tempting targets, and, 

 if we missed at first shot, there was no 

 hurry : they were right there to stay until 

 we knocked the treddles out. We saw a 

 mink swim the stream and stuck a ball, if 

 not in him, near him. Anyway, he passed 

 suddenly from view. 



I should have liked to linger there hours ; 

 but our shadows crouched close about our 

 heels and we knew it was getting tow r ard 

 high noon. 



In the afternoon Powell waked me from 

 the delicious snooze I described in the be- 

 ginning, in order that I should help him get 

 a rabbit which the hound had put into a 

 hollow log. 



Then we set our faces to the hills. The 

 white patches of sand were checkered with 

 turkey tracks, and occasionally we noticed 

 where a deer had driven his sharp hoof into 

 the ground. Wild scupperndngs grew there- 

 about in abundance, with a small scatter- 

 ing of muscadines. They were just ripen- 

 ing, and the eager manner in which we 

 nosed among the thick leaves after those 

 black and yellow clusters testified to our 

 relish for them. 



Presently we came to the crest of a long 

 ridge, whence we had the prospect of the 

 misty blue hills miles beyond the river. 

 Below was a meadow, sparsely grown with 

 sassafras and persimmon and carpeted with 

 wiregrass. In that meadow, far out of rifle 

 range, a big buck was feeding, and even 

 while we looked at and admired him, he 

 raised his antlered head high in the air, 

 sniffing the breeze. We knew the cat Was 

 out of the wallet, that in a moment he 

 would stretch away to the west ; so I set 

 my sight and sent him a leaden message. 

 Whether the ball struck near him or wheth- 

 er he heard the ping of the rifle, I know 

 not. But he waited no further investiga- 

 tion. Straight for the sheltering woods he 

 bounded and struck into them like a bird. 



For crisp, pure air, primal wildness of 

 nature, plenty and variety of game, I have 

 seen no region superior to the sand hills 

 along the Lumber river to the Northward 

 of Aberdeen. 



I exacted no damages for the day lost. 



