had been a lot of logs thrown in the hole. I rolled down in the sink 
hole and could see the rabbit hiding between the logs; I reached under 
the logs, caught him by the hind leg and pulled him out. He began to 
squeel and the dogs grabbed him, one would pull one way and another 
the other, and all the time I hung onto the hind leg until they threw 
me down and divided the rabbit between themselves, all except the one 
hind leg which I still held firmly in my hand. 
Jim helped me out of the sink hole and we started dejectedly for 
the house; u1)out half way we met Cindy, she looked at my blood¬ 
stained hands and said, “What dat you boys got?” We both tried to 
explain at once that it was a rabbit’s leg. “Why didn’t you bring all 
dat rabbit?” I explained that the dogs took it; we had no choice. She 
shook her head in disgust. “You all am fine hunta’s, let the dogs take 
youse rabbits.” Jim, bound to be in the right, replied: “Mammy, dey 
was de dogs’ rabbit we had—we took one leg though.” 
As we hunted rabbits more we learned to twist them out of the 
holes with a stick as well as how to smoke them out, when conditions 
were favorable. Once in awhile in the day time the dogs would tree 
an opossum. I can remember the first time they treed one—I climbed 
the tree and shook it down and the dogs chased it, biting it almost into 
a pulp, however. Jim and I rescued what was left of it and proudly lit 
out for home. We went straight for old Cindy’s cabin, she saw us 
running and came to the door to meet us. “What’s dat you debils got?” 
“A possum, mammy, a possum.” 
Cindy commended us by saying: “I does believe you boys ’ll be 
hunta’s yet; bring him in and let me scald him.” 
She had hot water and very soon Mr. Oppossum was in the dish- 
pan with scalding water running over him arid she quickly slipped off 
all the hair, then she took him out doors to leave him for the night, to 
freeze, promising us opossum and sweet potatoes the next day. 
Jim and I were at Cindy’s cabin bright and early and we hung 
around until Cindy came to the door with the message that our 
cpposum was ready to eat; in we rushed and seated ourselves on the 
wooden bench in front of the crude table, forgetting to even take off 
our hats. Cindy looked at us, endeavoring to act dignified, and said: 
“Boys, pull off your hats, ain’t youse got no manners?” 
Off went our hats and Cindy proceeded to heap our plates with 
oppossum and sweet potatoes and we set to. 
If you readers have never seen a nigger eat opossum and sweet 
potatoes you have missed half of your life—they get grease from above 
the eyes to below their chin. 
Jim and T were good sized boys, 8 or 10 years old, at this first 
oppossum feast. We soon found that night was the time to hunt 
oppossum, so we went often after that, with good success, sometimes 
catching two or three in a few hours’ hunt. 
Of fen our dogs would tree raccoons, or “Coons” as we always 
called them, and as I will now call them:, but they usually climbed 
large trees, too large for us to climb or cut. One night they happened 
to tree a coon up a persimmon tree that I could climb. I scaled the 
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