FOREST AND STREAM 
1137 
GROWING UP WITH BOB WHITE 
THE BOY LEARNED EARLY THE CONNECTION BETWEEN 
MAN, DOG AND GUN — AND HE NEVER FORGOT 
I. 
By Ripley. 
Taking the Lure. 
I N the dining room with the low ceiling that 
father’s head almost touched was where they 
gathered at night during the shooting season. 
I do not know just how old I was at the time, 
but this much I appreciated, there were certain 
kinds of dogs, guns and smelly hunting coats 
belonging to the visitors. Furthermore, I as¬ 
sociated these belongings with quails for break¬ 
fast; and I must have been a gourmand, too, for 
mother always appeared shocked when I begged 
for bird number two, and whispered across the 
table at me to keep still. I say whispered at 
me, because she spoke in a subdued voice, but 
loud enough for everyone at the table to hear. 
Father had these men every fall. When they 
arrived they were dressed in clothes of fashion¬ 
It Is Pleasant to Hunt, But the Noon-day Snack, With Its Recounting of the Morning’s Experience, 
Is Not to Be Overlooked. 
able cut and cloth of the finest texture. I know, 
for I compared them with father’s. Their faces 
were pale, their appetite not the best, and an 
aroma exuded from them when they talked, very 
much like that from mother’s plum pudding 
sauce. And their talk was principally on things 
connected with a certain street with a wall on 
the side of it in New York, and there were 
curbs, pits and stocks, which I thought had noth¬ 
ing to do with the things of the woods and fields, 
alone of interest to hunters. 
Next morning they got up long before I did. 
They were garbed in hunting coats and corduroy 
trousers. They did not eat much breakfast, 
mother said, and I heard her say that father 
laughed at this. That night, however, they came 
tramping in, and one big husky fellow, with a 
voice like our town auctioneer, Bill Page, sidled 
over to me, inquiring about my health, and hand¬ 
ing me a twenty-five cent piece, said: 
“Slip out in the kitchen, sonny, and find out 
when supper will be ready, for I am nearly 
starved to death.” 
Now, that evening at table they ate everything. 
I had seen a half-starved tramp slink to our 
door and beg for food, and when food was given 
to him I was amazed at the celerity with which 
he stored it away, but his exhibition was noth¬ 
ing to that performed by our guests that night. 
Corn bread, something they had refused the night 
previous, could not be made rapidly enough for 
them; and they crunched away so fast on their 
food they had no time to tail:. 
After supper the visitors had other topics for 
conversation. They complained in a happy way 
at the soreness of their legs, and they talked 
loud, but not once did they say a word about 
that walled street with its pits and curbs. Duke’s 
great point, May’s statuesque back, the incomer 
Daddy made easily, Jim’s double, together with 
a whole lot more other things not entirely clear 
to me they spoke of until ten o’clock. Then 
father chased them to bed. 
I heard enough to cause me to remain awake 
for many hours and listen to the stertorous 
breathing of the slumbering ones in the big room 
next to mine. In my mite of a way I thought I 
understood a lot about hunting. It was in my 
blood, my daddy’s blood, and my daddy’s father’s 
blood! I would be a hunter. I would shoot 
quails with a gun, and I would have two dogs 
like my father’s to find the game with. Then, 
I, too, could sit up and talk knowingly of in¬ 
comers, doubles, straightways, false points, and 
with a modest oath I could express my detesta¬ 
tion of blinkers! 
I remained awake longer than was good for 
me, but I knew right then, mite of a boy that 1 
was, that I had put my foot within the fascinat¬ 
ing coil of sportsmanship, and the day was soon 
to come when it would draw me unresistingly 
into its eternal clasp. 
At the ending of ten days our guests left. 
Their cheeks were rosy. The aloofness and tired 
look which their faces bore the day of their 
arrival had vanished with the contact of the air 
from frost-bitten fields. Before their departure 
they laughed and sang, and Kate, our cook, a 
cynical product of the Ozark hills, remarked: 
“They’d act like humans, if they’d stayed 
’nuther day!” 
Just before they went the husky voiced fellow 
