Feb, 33, 1898. j 
THE FARMER'S BOY. 
It is probably true that a large proportion of the most 
ardent and enthusiastic sportsmen are those whose boy- 
hood days were spent upon the farm; whose early asso- 
ciations were with the woods and fields, and whose recre- 
ations were largely found in hunting and fishing. 
Led by inclination or the force of circumstances to the 
ilarge towns, confined to sedentary occupations and de- 
prived for the greater part of the year of open-air free- 
idom and exercise, men find that although the cords 
jwhich bound the boy to his country home were very elas- 
tic when be pulled away, later in life they become tense 
land tug at the heart. 
Echoes and whisperings of the old days come back to 
Ibhe city man at his desk or counter, in the crowded streets, 
or amid the whir of machinery. The odor of a flower, 
■the note of a bird may bring the past all back to him; the 
subtle influence will be potent, and, a bare-footed boy, he 
jwill again drive the cows to pasture through the dew of 
Ibhe morning. Again the bubbling song of the bobolink 
lor the Clarion call of the blue jay will be borne to his ears; 
tagain the odor of the fresh-turned soil or the smell of the 
■ripening corn will greet his nostrils; and yet again visions 
af summer fields rippling in the heat, or still autumn 
'woods, whose leaves are falling "at the jarring of the 
earth's axle," will appeal to him and draw him — ay, drive 
fhim — to the meadow and forest once more. 
In the sparsely settled farming districts of the North 
fone is apt to find his sympathy and commiseration going 
tout to the children whose homes are in these lonely and 
•eemingly unattractive places. Remote from towns and 
j villages, and compelled through scant comradeship to 
jrely upon their own resources for enjoyment, it would 
I Indeed appear that their isolation and homely surround- 
jings were things to be regretted. But if we knew all that 
tthese little people know, perhaps we would find that they 
iaave less need of pity than ourselves; they are very close 
i to nature, and nature takes care of her own. 
The first messages of spring are given to the farmer's 
jboy. The mild south wind which softens the ice and sets 
;he meadow brooks to overflowing also causes his spirits 
■to thaw and overflow. It is to him that the first bluebird 
Ijalls out her sweet and cheery welcome, and it is his sharp 
pars and eyes that discover the pioneer robin in the top of 
ijthe tall maple. In his brown fist he brings home the 
(earliest spring flowers, blue violets, anemones and adder's- 
jtongues. The pussy-willow blooms for him before others 
Isee it, and all the creeping, crawling and flying things 
^report their advent to him before the rest of the world is 
[aware of their arrival. 
I It is not always he who travels furthest that learns the 
•most. The intelligent boy who has spent a dozen years or 
[more on a fifty-acre farm, almost every square foot of which 
She has worked over with hoe, or axe, or scythe, gets to 
Oiave a very thorough knowledge of a large part of the 
jearth's surface, even though he may never have crossed 
{the limits of the county in which he was born. Being 
tfor the most part mechanically employed, his faculties 
jare alert to what is going on around him. He sees the 
jwild creatures in all their moods, surprises them on their 
imost furtive errands and sooner or later draws their secrets 
[from them. 
The strange and beautiful forms of vegetable life hiding 
Jin the wildest nooks and most secluded corners are sure 
I to come under his notice; and though he may not always 
I know the names of the weeds and shrubs and flowers he 
{sees, yet he is on more than speaking terms with them, 
{recognizing them as friends and acquaintances and per- 
jhaps attaching to them a quaint but appropriate nomen- 
jclature of his own. He is familiar with their salutary or 
I baneful properties and can tell you where to find the bal- 
jsam for your wounds and the puff ball for your cuts. He 
| knows the value of the thoroughwort and the leaves of 
jthe poplar, and when to prescribe choke-cherries. He 
1 steers his city cousin clear of the dogwood, poison ivy and 
inightshade, but shows him that he may safely browse on 
j sumach berries, sassafras, black birch and slippery elm. 
J He can take you to the field where the spearmint grows' 
Jthe shady spot where the pungent tansy flourishes 
J and the marsh where the sweet flag can be found. He 
ji includes partridge berries, sorrel, hollyhock cheeses and 
j '-ladies' tobacco" in his bill of fare, and isn't afraid to 
| sample som of nature's unknown dishes. He believes 
j that dogs eat grass for good and sufficient reasons, and 
j although be has never discovered why cats rub them- 
| selves in valerian he gives them credit for knowing what 
i they are about, and is convinced that if we were as wise 
I as the cats and dogs we could find a cure for every bodily 
ill in the plants that grow in the fields and by the way- 
j side. Who shall say that be is not right in this belief? 
What rich and varied opportunities for observation 
I may be discovered in the typical Northern farm, with its 
t meadows of grass land through which the alder-skirted 
. trout brook threads its devious way; its bit of swamp, 
| luxuriant with willows, cat-tails and rank, sword-like 
» grasses, home of the redwing, the frog and the dragon- 
l fly ; its ancient orchard, beloved of orioles and wood- 
J peckers, dispenser of June fragrance and conservator of 
I autumn flowers; its upland pasture, wild garden of the 
mullen, the thistle and the sweet fern, haunt of the plover 
I and the red fox; and finally and best of all, its "wood lot" 
of beech and maple, hickory, oak and yellow birch, with 
t here and there dark pines and hemlocks, the sentry-boxes 
I -of the crows. 
Into the shadows of this forest the farmer's boy steals 
J with ttxumping heart to take his first lessons in hunting ; 
and when before the antique muzzleloader his first red 
squirrel falls he experiences the same thrill of excitement 
and exultation which in later years accompanies his suc- 
cessful shot at deer or moose. Here the gray squirrel 
with many a jerk of his broad tail squawks his alarm or 
derision, the downy owl flits noiselessly through the shades, 
the hermit thrush thrills the woods with his melody, and 
the slim weasel, a "lean and hungry Cassius," steals on 
his bloodthirsty errand. The mother partridge with • ud- 
ning ventriloquism calls her scattered brood, the great 
ivory bill sounds his reveille on the dry limb and utters 
his wild and far-heard cackle,, chipmunks scurry among 
the dead leaves and a hundred birds with tinkling throats 
proclaim the joy of living. 
All these glimpses into the book of nature are granted 
to the farmer's boy. He is always on the ground and 
what he misses one day he finds the next. The home of 
the flying squirrel in the hollow stub, the night hawk's 
nest upon the rock, the awamp orchid, the mud-turtle's 
egg, the wild pigeon's roost, he knows where to find them 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
all. His occupation and his inclination lead him to them; 
and thus, by slow accretions, he gathers a rich store of 
knowledge concerning this wonderful out-of-door life — 
"Knowledge, never learned In schools, 
Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
Of the wild flower's time and place, 
Flight of bird and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood; 
How the tortoise bears liis shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
And the ground-mole sinks his well; 
How the robin feeds her young, 
How the oriole's nest is hung, 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow. 
Where the ground nut trails its vine, 
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; 
Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
Mason of his walls of clay, 
And the architectural plans 
Of gray hornet artisans! — 
For eschewing books and tasks, 
Nature answers all he asks; } 
Hand in hand with her he walks, 
Face to face with her he talks, 
Part and parcel of her joy." 
And this knowledge is not lost or forgotten, but becomes 
more distinct and permanent with the lapse of years. It 
shapes itself into pictures of the old familiar scenes, and 
these are some of them : 
A spreading butternut tree standing in the stone wall, 
with its tropical looking foliage and clusters of nuts; an 
apple lodged in one of its forks by an epicurean red 
squirrel. 
A shapely wine-glass elm in the pasture, its bark near 
the ground rubbed smooth and shiny by the necks of cat- 
tle; a golden robin's graceful hammock swinging from a 
long pendulous bough; way station where twice each 
year the birds of passage stop to rest and take council. 
A line of gray old ledge on the ridge of the farm, type 
of permanence and immutability; seamed with rims of 
shining quartz, edged with sweet turf close nibbled by 
the sheep and covered with the fine embroidery of the 
lichens. 
An old rail fence, "the squirrels' highway," cross-stitch- 
ing the fields, crooking its elbows now on this man's land 
and now on that, with a magnificent disregard of sur- 
veyors' lines, its angles and deep corners, protected from 
the scythe, furnishing safe harborage for the milkweed, 
the golden rod and the elderberry. 
The farmer's boy has seen and lov*>d these things and 
they have become a part of him. He may not for a 
time appreciate them or realize their import; but sooner 
or later they take on their full value, the more surely if 
they are no longer at hand. With rod or gun he goes 
back to them, not alone to hunt and fish, but also to satis- 
fy a craving for the open-air sights and sounds which he, 
of all men, is best fitted to enjoy. Arthur F. Rich. 
WITH THE BOBO BEAR PACK— IV. 
Educating the Pack. 
In the evening after the killing of the big bear two men 
from a camp of still- hunters about a mile or so away came 
over to our camp and said they had seen a fresh trail of a 
bear and cub near their camp that afternoon. This was 
in the direction of the blue cane ridges, where the first 
successes of the hunt had been had, but it was much less 
distance from our camp. Accordingly Oapt. Bobo de- 
cided to make the hunt over in that direction the follow- 
ing morning. 
Fincher Bobo left the party on this next morning, 
Wednesday, and the field party was smaller that day than 
any during the entire trip— only Capt. Bobo, Mr. Beard, 
Mr. Money and myself, with some of the colored con- 
tingent. We fooled around a long time over the country 
where the old bear trail had been seen, but got no strike. 
Then we went down to a water hole where some bear sign 
had been seen two days earlier, and here some of the 
young dogs jumped a deer, which was seen by Mr. Beard 
and Mr. Money as it passed through the open woods. 
This deer lost us over an hour's time before we could get 
the dogs off. When at last we headed the pack the hunt 
broke up and resolved itself into a general dog-whipping 
bee. As fast as the delinquent hounds could be caught 
they were taken to a convenient sapling, and while one 
man held the forelegs firmly, one on each side of the 
tree, so that the dog could not bite or get away, another 
industriously plied a tough branch over his wriggling 
anatomy. The dog would begin to howl before the whip- 
ping began, hound fashion, only to redouble his vocaliza- 
tion after it was well under way; so for half an hour, 
while the serious business pf educating the bear pack was 
going on, we had more music than we cared for. The 
trouble was caused by a few new dogs which had just 
been put into the pack, and which had always been run 
on deer before. The ravages of the chase make constant 
renewals of the numbers of the Bobo pack a necessity, 
and hence the history of the pack is one long series of 
breaking in, there rarely being a dozen dogs at once 
which are considered first-class bear dogs. 
Tribulations. 
We had nothing but trouble all that day, and the dogs 
acted in a most puzzling manner, opening repeatedly, 
but running for hours without making out anything. 
Once there was a long, determined drive made by the 
bulk of the pack, including a few good ones, the course 
being back toward the cane ridges earlier mentioned. 
Afterward we believed that this was really a bear trail, 
possibly made by a cub, but at the time we thought it 
was another deer. Capt. Bobo, Mr. Money and myself 
rode hard for two miles to head the pack, and at length 
got in front of them in some open woods. We could see 
them coming full cry, about twenty of them, well 
bunched together and going a good clip, now with heads 
up and now with noses down, all apparently very positive 
as to what they were about. Yet we beat them all off, 
or at least all we could, and started back again, Capt. 
Bobo wondering "what had got into the dogs." To make 
a long ride short, we sp^-nt the day on such false starts, and 
got up no bear, so that that night again Bobo rode home 
singing very loud, apparently very happy and therefore 
really very much discontented. I really don't know 
what Bobo would do if he lived in a country where a 
iei 
man hunts all day for a rabbit and is elated if he sees a 
track. With Bobo nothing less than a bear a day, or 
maybe more, is satisfactory. For my own part, I thought 
we were having pretty good hunting, though I did want 
awfully to get to kill a bear, lest my friends should think 
me an absolute duffer to go out on so many chases and 
never get a shot — one's friends not always knowing the 
value of plain luck in a bear hunt. "It looks like you'd 
have to stay till February, sure enough," said Bobo. 
"The luck's turned against us. I don't reckon we ever 
will kill another bear now." 
But fortune was kind to us that day in bringing back 
into camp Capt. Boney Leavell, whom we met out in the 
woods that day, accompanied by Uncle Joe, the faithful 
old gray-headed negro bear hunter, whom I have earlier 
mentioned as one of the population of the Leavell planta- 
tion for two generations. Capt. Leavell mourned the de- 
parture of his friend, Col. Dick Pay ne, because he had no 
one who could fight the war over with him again so well; 
but none the less we all had a pleasant evening in camp 
around the fire together. Uncle Joe had rheumatism. In 
common with all the colored bear hunters we saw, ho 
seemed to think that about the best thing for rheumatism 
was half a tumbler full of straight whisky, taken inter- 
nally. This may have helped Uncle Joe's rheumatism, but 
it never changed in the least the benign and venerable 
expression of his countenance. 
The Luck of the Last Day. 
On Thursday the sun rose fair, and we made an early 
start, not going this time toward the Hurricane and cane 
ridge country, but trying again the country where we 
killed the big bear two days before. Ill luck seemed to 
attend us, for though we got an early strike the run ended 
in nothing, and Capt. Bobo anathematized his pack as 
having degenerated into a lot of deer dogs. We spent 
nearly the whole morning trying to get the pack into line, 
and never did know for certain what they had up. About 
noon our party was joined by Mr. Kimerer, the timber 
owner earlier mentioned in these articles. He had 
brought down five or six friends from his timber camp to 
join in a hunt with the Bobo camp. I counted, the long 
line of horsemen as we rode along, and found that, includ- 
ing the four negroes, Bill, Pete, Sam and Uncle Joe, we 
had fifteen rifles in the field, all willing and anxious to kill 
a bear. My own time in camp was getting short, and as 
I said above, I wanted to shoot one bear simply for the 
sake of being able to say I had done so. The chances for 
a shot on that day were not brilliant for any one man, 
unless it was Bobo, but nevertheless I tried to figure my 
chance as one in fifteen, and for the rest relied on the 
Forest and Stream luck— which same luck it was that 
brought Mr. Burnham, of the Forest and Stream staff, 
the moose that he went after last fall, and which, I am 
convinced, will bring any member of the Forest and 
Stream family anything he really starts out to get. 
After we had at length by hard riding assembled the 
pack again, about noon, it was decided to leave those 
hunting grounds and go over toward the Hurricane again, 
it being plain that the bears of the entire region were hav- 
ing an awful shaking up, which made it uncertain about 
getting a start without a long ride over a lot of ground. 
The Starting of the Bear. 
As we approached our old hunting ground we began to 
fall into a long series of blue cane ridges separated by long 
and narrow sloughs, all of which made down to the cy- 
press swamp at the edge of the Hurricane. Our party 
being too large and hence too noisy for successful bear 
hunting (where intent listening is one of the essential 
arts), Capt. Bobo divided us, sending the greater part 
down one of the sloughs, while the rest of us* went on 
across the heavy ridges and along the persimmon sloughs 
to work out a strike. From that time till 10 o'clock that 
night I never saw any of the other party again excepting 
Capt. Leavell and Mr. Beard at one time and for only a mo- 
ment. With Capt. Bobo, after we had ridden the heavy 
cane for a mile or bo, there were only myself and the four 
negroes, Bill, Pete, Sam and Uncle Joe. At about 2 
o'clock we found fresh bear signs in a little wet slough 
and the dogs went off at cry, though the pack separated. 
We rode over a heavy ridge into another slough and then, 
on the slope of the next ridge, in very heavy cover, and 
not more than 150yds. from us, we heard the unmistak- 
able change of tongue into a savage roaring, which told 
us the bear was up and the dogs close to him. 
In View! 
"Ride — ride on down the slough, hard as you can!" 
cried Bobo to me. "You'll head him as he crosses if you 
hurry !" 
I rode on down as fast as I could, in company with 
Sam. But here was where my ignorance of bear hunt- 
ing stood me in bad stead. The dogs were coming 
angling toward the slough, and when I got to where I 
thought they would break cover I did not ride any fur- 
ther, but kept looking toward my right into the cane, 
watching for the bear to come out. At that instant I 
saw Sam fooling with his gun, which had got caught in 
a grapevine, and which he was trying to get to his face. 
"There he goes!" he exclaimed, and this was the first I 
knew what it was about. While I was waiting for the 
bear to break cover near by he came out about 60yds. 
ahead of us and sprang across the narrow slough. Sam 
Baid he could have killed him if he could have got his 
gun free, but I don't think he could, and I know I couldn't 
have done so had I seen the bear, for the glimpse was 
only for 20yds., through trees and cane, and the horses 
were plunging, and there was no time to dismount. 
Gone Away ! 
But the chase was now on, after a bear which the 
negroes all said was "Beeg bah — beeg ez a mule!" And 
the chase was headed right back the way we had come. 
While Sam, Pete, Uncle Joe and myself were trying to 
get below the pack down our slough, Capt. Bobo and Bill 
rode directly back across the ridges and were soon out of 
hearing. In five minutes not a whisper of the pack could 
be heard. It seemed sure the chase had gone toward the 
other half of the party, and that if they did not kill the 
bear would be lost in the Hurricane. 
The Art of Bear Hunting:. 
Now ensued some mighty good bear hunting on the 
part of my sable companions. They did not need any 
one to tell them what to do, but went ahead confidently. 
We rode half a mile or so and then stopped to listen. 
