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Updated: May 10, 2025
Let me see: there were John and Andrew and Black Peter, and Bow-legged Saul, and Milker-Tim, and Billy, and Uncle Limpy-Jack, and others now forgotten, and the three white boys. And the dogs, "Ole Rattler," and "Ole Nim-rod," who had always been old by their names, and were regarded with reverence akin to fetich-worship because they were popularly supposed to be able to trail a hare.
But "molly is berry sly," and while the dogs were chasing each other around the pines, she was tripping back down through the field to the place where we had started her. We were recalled by hearing an unexpected "bang" from the field behind us, and dashing out of the woods we found Uncle Limpy-Jack holding up a hare, and with a face whose gravity might have done for that of Fate.
Don was not permanently hurt; but one ear was pierced by several shot, which was a serious affair, as his beauty was one of his good points, and his presence on a hare-hunt was wholly against the rules. Uncle Limpy-Jack painted the terrors of the return home for Peter with a vividness so realistic that its painfulness pierced more breasts than Peter's.
There was only one exception to this rule: Uncle "Limpy-Jack," so called because he had one leg shorter than the other, was allowed to have a gun. He was a sort of professional hunter about the place. No lord was ever prouder of a special privilege handed down in his family for generations. The other boys were armed with stout sticks and made much noise.
"Dy ah she go!" arose from a dozen throats, and gone she was, in fact, safe in a thicket of briers which no dog nor negro could penetrate. The bushes were vigorously beaten, however, and all of us, except Uncle Limpy-Jack and Milker-Tim, crossed over to the far side of the ditch where the bottom widened, when suddenly she was discovered over on the same side, on the edge of the little valley.
Peter's face was a study. If he had killed one of us he could not have looked more like a criminal, nor have heard more abuse. Uncle Limpy-Jack poured out on him such a volume of vituperation and contempt that he was almost white, he was so ashy.
We went back to the branch and began again to beat the bushes, Uncle Limpy-Jack taking unquestioned the foremost place, which had heretofore been held by us. Suddenly there was a movement, a sort of scamper, a rash, as something slipped out of the heavy grass at our feet and vanished in the thick briers of the ditch bank.
The question of concealing Don and his ragged ears came up. It was necessary to catch him and keep him from the house. We started up the slope after him. As we climbed the hill we heard them. "Dee got a ole hyah now; come on," exclaimed one or two of the younger negroes; but old Limpy-Jack came to a halt, and turning his head to one side listened. "Heish!
He lay down on the ground and rolled. Met was scared to death and we were all seriously frightened. Limpy-Jack himself may have thought he was really killed. He certainly made us think so. He would not let anyone look at the wound.
Uncle Limpy-Jack basely deserted us after getting the promise of our gold dollars, declaring that he "told dem boys dat huntin' ole hyahs warn' no business for chillern!" We knew that we had to "face the condign." There was no maudlin sentiment in that region. Solomon was truly believed to have been the wisest of men, and at least one of his decrees was still acted on in that pious community.
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