“shining” his eyes, which is done by holding the torch behind one, and
shooting him; by cutting down the tree and trusting to the dogs to
capture him before he gets away; or by climbing the tree and shaking
him down or making him jump off. As Tom Ford was a noted climber and
the tree was not too large for him to “hug,” it was decided to climb,
after the “shining” method had been resorted to without success. Tom
cut a stick about six feet long which he tied around his neck and
dragged up after him. This was to be used to poke the quarry off the
limb in case he came to close quarters. He threw off his jacket and cap
and commenced swarming up the trunk which stretched full forty feet
without a limb, lifting himself with his powerful ape-like arms and
the cupped hollows of his bare, horny feet, with which he gripped the
trunk. In a few minutes he reached the first limb and the excitement
below him increased, both hunters and dogs looking earnestly upward as
the climber stood on the limb and looked above and around him, trying
to locate the quarry.
“Weh ’e dey, Tom?” called Abram. “You shum?”
“Uh yent shum,” was the laconic response.
Tom again hugged the tree, whose narrowed trunk now gave him a better
hold, and went up ten or twelve feet to the next limb. Just as he
pulled himself over it and got to his feet, there was a great rattling
of claws on the bark of a long outstretching limb a few feet over his
head, and, silhouetted against the patches of starlight that broke
the leafage above him, he could make out the cunning ’coon running
along the limb to its very end where it touched a far-reaching bough
from the second tree of the group. Tom yelled, with the hope that he
might frighten the animal into missing its step and falling, but the
sure-footed creature passed safely and disappeared among the dark
needles that veiled his sanctuary.
“Look out, Unk’ Ebbrum, look out! ’E done cross to de todduh tree,”
Tom called, as he began to slide toward the earth. The group on the
ground flared torches and looked anxiously at the new retreat, but no
shining eyes were visible, and the futility of further pursuit of this
particular ’coon was realized, as he had demonstrated that he could
cross too readily from one to another of the three sister pines. The
short chase had lasted only a few minutes and the hunt took up its
equipment and returned to the Caw Caw Swamp Road, Abram, after much
pondering, having decided to exploit the “Tombs” drive, a noted hunting
ground. Half a mile farther and the party turned to the right and in
a few minutes passed near “the Tombs,” one of the Colonial burying
grounds found occasionally in the low-country forests.
The solitary negro will seldom pass one of these graveyards at night,
and even with companions and torches the ’coon-hunters walked more
rapidly until “the Tombs” was passed. As they entered an old field
with several large persimmon trees full of ripening fruit, to Abram’s
experienced eye a presage of ’possums, sure enough, in a moment, one
of Joe’s curs, with a shrill yelp, struck a hot trail and off they
went across the big field, followed rapidly by men and boys. The dogs
overtook the quarry at the edge of the clearing and treed at a young
oak, near whose top the torches revealed a big ’possum about thirty
feet from the ground. As the tree was easy, Sike, the fourteen-year-old
novice, was given the place of honor as climber, and up he went, full
of the pride that goeth before a fall. Sike was short and fat, and
spread-eagled himself like a great black frog as he laboriously worked
his way upward. The going was heavy, and having his hands or his arms
full, he did not take the precaution to look above him until he had
almost put his hand on the animal. A sudden snarl from the hunted, and
a frightened yell from the hunter, who lost his hold and fell six or
eight feet toward the ground, clutching wildly at the branches on the
way down, fortunately landing on one strong enough to bear his weight.
He did not linger in the tree but slid to the ground as quickly as
possible, where he was received with shouts of laughter. “Haw, Buck! ef
oonuh ’f’aid _’possum_, how you gwine t’row down _rokkoon_?” But Sike
said nothing, while Joe went up the tree and threw down the ’possum,
which rolled into a ball as soon as he touched the ground, and, after
having been mouthed over by the dogs, was tied up in a sack and given
to Sike to carry.
And now into the big swamp that stretched from the Tombs to Long Life
Spring, a noted water-hole that never failed in even the worst drought.
Ring gave tongue querulously once or twice on a cold trail. “Rokkoon,”
Abram laconically remarked, and, as a shrill outcry from Joe’s
nondescripts rang through the woods in another direction, “rabbit,”
he added contemptuously. The younger negroes soon caught and thrashed
the rabbit-chasers and, as Ring had now developed his trail and was
giving tongue more freely, the other dogs were hied away to join him
and soon added their voices to his. The cry skirted the swamp and in a
few minutes their barking indicated that they had treed a quarter of a
mile away. The ’coon had taken refuge in a big rosemary, whose smooth
bark and thick trunk presented difficulties to a climber, and Abram
decided to cut it down. Tom and Joe on opposite sides plied their axes
vigorously. How many magnificent forest trees have been sacrificed
since the war by the wasteful negro hunters who have no compunction
about cutting down a ten dollar tree, belonging to some one else, to
capture a “two-bit” raccoon! And the negro who would grunt grievously
if had to fell three or four big pines for a day’s work, will throw an
equal number as a pastime, in an hour or two at night! Soon the tree
began to crack, and the dogs were seized, to prevent them from rushing
under the falling trunk in their eagerness to be on hand when the ’coon
should jump out of the thick branches at the top. They were released
as the tree crashed to earth. Although they quickly surrounded the
top, the wary ’coon had already made a getaway, but the cry followed
hot-foot and forced him up a white oak a hundred yards distant. The
tree, of moderate size, was thickly branched and no glimpse of the
’coon could be discerned through the heavy leafage. Tom tied a long
stick over his shoulder and was soon on the first big limb which he
proceeded to explore, “cooning” it out, while the torch-bearers held
their lights under the end of the limb, and thus the second and third
limbs were explored, but no dark form appeared against the light, and
Tom climbed to a fork thirty feet from the ground. He paused for a
moment and looked about him, then yelled “Great Gawd, Unk’ Ebbrum, duh
_two_ rokkoon!”
“Weh ’e dey, boy? _T’row’um down!_”
“Dem alltwo dey ’pun dish’yuh lef’ han’ limb.”
“Shine dem eye, Joe, lemme shoot’um,” said Abram.
“Tek’care oonuh ent shine my’own en’ shoot me!” cried Tom.
“Nigguh eye yent fuh shine,” Abram replied, but he was spared the
embarrassment of having to distinguish between Tom’s eyes and the
raccoons’, for one of the animals, a half grown individual, broke
sanctuary, and, dashing past Tom, slid down the tree to a lower limb,
from whose extremity he sprang to the ground, unhappily for him, only
a few feet distant from the watching Ring, who was on him before he
could get started. There was a furious scuffle for a few minutes but
the veteran dog soon choked the ’coon to death.
Tom now commenced crawling out on the limb after the big raccoon, who
growled menacingly and backed as the negro neared him. At last the limb
began to sag under Tom’s weight and the ’coon at the very end, eight or
ten feet beyond him, teetered uneasily, as the torches flared beneath
him and the dogs yelped expectantly. The long stick was now brought
into play and Tom straddled the bough while he tried to pry off the
quarry, but in his zeal he overreached himself and slid too far. The
bough buckled under him like a whip and he lost his balance, but while
regaining his hold with monkey-like agility he clutched so frantically
at the raccoon’s end of the limb as to dislodge its occupant, who fell
in the very teeth of the dogs. In the fierce fight that ensued, the
raccoon slit the ears of the younger dogs and mauled them severely
before Ring could get the throat-hold he wanted. Once secured, however,
he soon choked the ’coon to death. As midnight approached, it was
decided to eat supper and go home.
A lot of dry wood was gathered and a big fire made in a little glade.
The younger negroes sat around the flames waiting for the coals upon
which to broil the smoked herrings. Old ’Bram stretched out on the
ground with the soles of his bare feet toward, and almost in, the fire,
and, true to the traditions of a night watchman, he soon fell asleep.
The flames crackled. Tom and Joe and the solemn Sike blinked at the
light and nodded, the dogs licked their wounds and whimpered at the
sharper twinges of pain. Suddenly old Abram grunted and “sniffed the
tainted gale.”
“Eh, eh! Uh smell foot duh bu’n! Somebody’ foot mus’ be duh bu’n! Uh
wunduh who’ foot duh bu’n?” Then, as he sat up and saw the curling
smoke rising from the thick horny sole of one of his own feet, “Great
Gawd, duh _my’own! Duh my foot duh bu’n!_ Tom, oonuh binnuh seddown duh
fiah duh look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n, hukkuh you nubbuh tell me?”
“Me shum duh bu’n fuh true, Unk’ Ebbrum, but oonuh binnuh sleep en’ uh
t’awt ’e would bex you fuh wake.”
“Oonuh had no bidness fuh t’awt nutt’n’! You seddown duh fiah en’ look
’puntop my foot duh bu’n en’ nubbuh tell me. Joe, oonuh binnuh seddown
duh fiah duh look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n, hukkuh you nubbuh tell me?”
“Unk’ ’Bram, I shum duh smoke, but uh nebbuh t’ink ’e bu’n bad ’nuf fuh
hot you.”
“Co’se ’e didn’ bu’n bad ’nuf fuh hot me, but ef uh yent bin had sense
’nuf fuh smell’um en’ know suh somebody’ foot duh bu’n, ’e might uh
bu’n off, en’ you seddown duh fiah en’ look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n
en’ nubbuh tell me. Sike, oonuh binnuh seddown duh fiah duh look
’puntop my foot duh bu’n, hukkuh you nubbuh tell me?”
“Me nebbuh shum, suh, uh binnuh sleep.”
“Meself binnuh sleep. Enty uh smell somebody’ foot duh bu’n en’ mek me
fuh wake? Oonuh boy’ grow up sence freedum, oonuh _ent wut_!”
The herrings were broiled and eaten with the hardtack, the spoils were
slung around the shoulders of the hunters, the fire beaten out, the
torches relit, and a short cut taken for home. As old Abram relieved
his substitute at the watchfire in the barnyard, his voice rumbled
through his beard like the muttering of slow and distant thunder, “Uh
done tell Mas’ Rafe suh dese’yuh nigguh’ grow’ up sence freedum, dem
ent wut! Dem good fuh nutt’n’ _debble’ub’uh_ no’count boy, dem seddown
duh fiah duh look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n en’ dem nubbuh tell me suh
my foot duh bu’n. _Dem nubbuh tell me!_”
THE TURKEY HUNTER
Sabey, a queer, misshapen mulatto, almost an albino, with green eyes
and yellow wool lighting and thatching a shrewd and twisted, though
good-natured, monkey face, lived, a few years after the war, on Pon
Pon. His wife, Bess, a good-looking black girl, was devoted to him as a
good husband and a first-rate provider. When twitted by the other negro
women with her husband’s lack of personal pulchritude, she was always
ready with a retort.
“Mekso you marri’d monkey fuh man, Bess?”
“Sabey oagly en’ him look lukkuh monkey fuh true, but him iz uh good
puhwiduh en’ no odduh man haffuh come een him house fuh feed him wife,
en’ _Stepney_ nebbuh come een needuh.”
Sabey lived in a cabin at the edge of the woods, far away from the
other plantation settlements, seldom mixing with the other negroes,
who rather feared him, having a vague sort of belief in his ability to
throw spells. When not hunting, he worked, but he was usually hunting
in winter, and hunting successfully, for although his piece was one
of the condemned army muskets carried by so many low-country negroes
after Freedom, he was a good shot and possessed infinite patience and
considerable woodcraft. Energetic, too, his twisted legs carried him
for miles through the forests and along the backwaters and abandoned
ricefields where, creeping on all-fours and worming his way through
cane-brakes and briars, he frequently surprised summer ducks, and
occasionally mallard and teal, feeding on the grass seeds along the
margins, or the rich acorns from the live-oaks whose far-flung boughs
stretched over the canals, and Sabey was an economist and seldom wasted
shot on a single bird. On frosty mornings when he peeped over the
embankments and saw green-wing teal strung upon a floating log basking
in the first rays of the wintry sun, he would maneuver and crawl
around, regardless of bogs or briars, until he got into a position
where he could line them up, when, after his old “muskick” had spoken,
he would sometimes gather up a dozen or more, which he sold to “de
buckruh” on the plantations, or at the railway station; but it was as a
turkey hunter that Sabey achieved distinction in the community.
Wild turkeys were very plentiful in the low-country soon after the
war, and in the winter season flocks sometimes came up in the live-oak
avenues and tangled gardens of the war-ruined plantations, making a
boy’s heart thump against his ribs as he watched them picking up the
acorns just out of gunshot of his little single-barrel. In roaming
the woods, Sabey knew every dogwood knoll between the Stackyard and
Beaver Dam, and when, in midwinter or later, he saw where the turkeys
had “scratched” among the leaf mould for the glossy red berries that
form their favorite wild food, he scattered handfuls of peas or rough
rice about and returned a day or two later to see if the turkeys had
taken the bait. If the scattered grain was untouched, he would offer
temptation elsewhere until the wary birds had overcome suspicion and
established relations with the rich man-grown food placed before them.
The bait once taken, Sabey returned at two or three-day intervals and
spread the feast anew, which after a while came to be to the turkeys
as their daily bread. Then, behind some hurricane tree or old log
nearby, the hunter prepared the “blind”--usually a pit three or four
feet deep, camouflaged with boughs or great pieces of pine bark, with a
gun opening toward an open space where, in a shallow trench, grain was
scattered. From the scratching ground under the dogwoods, a trail would
be laid to the trench, which was visited and replenished day after day
until the greedy birds had become fearless and came regularly to their
breakfast table. Then “one fine day,” just at dawn, Sabey would shamble
off to the forest and creep within his blind, where he almost held his
breath in “watchful waiting” for the coming of his quarry.
Nothing save Sir Walter’s conception of the mutability of the feminine
mind, is quite so uncertain as the hour of the coming of wild turkeys
to a blind. Sometimes at daylight, as they fly from their roosts on
the topmost limbs of the great pines, they go at once to the bait. The
next day, perhaps, they may roam the woods for hours and not reach the
blind until noon, and on yet other days the fickle creatures resist
temptation altogether, so “it is well understood” that whoso would
shoot turkeys at a blind must have abundant patience and a certain
complacent attitude toward his own society.
Who can tell what thoughts moved through Sabey’s brain cells as he
sat “steadfast, ummovable” through the waiting hours. Did the tips of
Aurora’s rosy fingers mean anything to him as she lifted the somber
curtains of the night and ushered in the radiant God of day? Did the
harsh yet homey “chauw, chauw” of the brown thrasher--the first winter
bird to awaken in copse or forest--take his thoughts to the lonely
cabin where Bess dreamed of the Sunday calico or the new shoes that
would follow Sabey’s successful shot? Did the last hoot of the barred
owl as, his night hunting over, he slipped away on muffled wing to
the thick woods to drowse his days away, tell him anything of the
human prototypes of all birds of prey? They, too, the selfish and the
predatory, clutter up the by-ways of the world, closing their eyes to
the light of service and the pulsing of humanity about them till, with
the falling shadows, their eyes open and they prowl in quest of the
unwary!
But whatever Sabey’s musings, he crept morning after morning into
his blind and waited patiently as the hours slipped by, for the
game that never came. Perhaps the wary birds had sensed danger at
the blind--perhaps they had found a more convenient food supply
elsewhere--but late every morning for a week Sabey had returned home
weary and empty-handed, but, with a true sportsman’s spirit, determined
to try again. Sunday intervened. A strong superstition in the negro’s
mind, that to fire a gun on Sunday is to “hab sin,” kept him out of
the woods, and he shambled off to church, but four o’clock the next
morning, an hour before dawn, found him at the tryst which, through
thought-waves, he believed he had made with the flock of turkeys.
They kept the tryst. The dawn came up slowly and silently, bringing in
one of those rare windless, low-country winter days, when all the air
is pale blue and gold and the forests are green and purple and brown.
The first rays of the sun touched with pallid flame the topmost boughs
of the tall pines and glanced from the myriad glistening needles that
hung motionless in the chilly air. As the sun climbed yet higher,
its sensuous warmth drank up the white frost that lay like a crystal
blanket upon the open spaces and the light vapors that hung over the
dark places in the forest, and, as the warmer and softer air fell about
Sabey, he drowsed at his post.
The outdoor negroes of the coast need neither watch nor clock to tell
the time of day. From “middlenight” or “fus’ fowl crow,” on through the
procession of the hours to “dayclean,” “sun’up,” “one,” “two,” “t’ree
hour attuh sun’up,” to “middleday,” and then on, as the sun slants
downward, through “t’ree hour,” “two hour,” “one hour to sundown,” and
“fus’ daa’k,” he makes a close approximation. So, as Phœbus shot with
flat trajectory across the Southern sky, Sabey, snuggled down among the
dry pine needles with which he had nearly filled his trench, dozed and
listened and dozed, and waking, muttered “middleday,” and dozed again.
A slight rustling of dead leaves like the whisper of gently falling
rain, and ten beautiful gobblers entered the little glade and going
straight to the trench, began picking up the grain greedily. The
sunlight flashed from their gleaming breasts as from planished bronze.
Their iridescent plumage showed all the tints of glorified autumn
leaves, and, as they stooped to feed, their long beards touched the
ground. A braver sight to a hunter’s eye than bear or buck or any other
game that roams the Southern forests!
Sabey slowly opened his eyes and stiffened like a setter at the point.
His long musket, already aligned to rake the trench, rested securely
in a forked stick driven into the ground. As a sibilant whistle came
from his twisted lips, ten heads uprose like the armed men from the
mythical dragon’s teeth, and came in line with the leveled gun. At
a warning “putt” from their suspicious leader, they stood on tiptoe
for a breakaway, but Sabey pulled his clumsy trigger, and following
the heavy roar, he clambered out of the blind and ran forward to find
seven great birds fluttering on the ground, while the others ran at
race-horse speed for thirty or forty feet (your turkey, like your
condor and your aeroplane, must take wing from a running start) and,
rising on a long slant with a great beating of the air, topped the
pines a quarter of a mile away and sailed off beyond “the Cypress.”
The big birds, shot in the head, soon lay still and Sabey’s simian
face wrinkled with satisfaction. “Tengk Gawd, uh git oonuh at las’,”
he chuckled. “One, two, t’ree, fo’, fibe, six, seb’n,” he slowly
counted--“t’ree git’way.” And then he scratched his head. Sabey was
undersized, “him leetle but ’e ole,” the negroes observed, and could
he pack far more than his weight in turkeys to the “big house” a mile
away? It seemed a task too great for his strength, but his spirit was
high, and, as he thought of the wildcats and gray foxes that abounded
in these forests so seldom entered by hunter or woodman, he shook his
head, pulled out a formidable-looking clasp knife and began to peel the
bark from a young hickory. “No,” he said to himself, “uh yent fuh lef’
none. Uh tote’um all ef ’e tek me ’tell sundown fuh git Pon Pon. All
wuh Mas’ Rafe ent buy, uh gwine tek deepo. No fox, needuhso wil’cat,
nebbuh git ’e teet’ een dem tuckrey!” and he quickly removed the outer
bark from the long strips he had skinned from the sapling and scraped
and twisted the tough inner fibre into serviceable thongs. This strong
hickory bark is the common cordage of the plantation negroes and serves
for girths, bridles and harness for horse and ox, and is also plaited
into the long whips used by herdsmen and bird-minders, the “pop” of
whose lash or “cracker” is as far-sounding as the report of a rifle.
Sabey tied six of the birds in pairs by their long necks, distributing
them as comfortably as he could about his ungainly person--one pair
over each shoulder, while the other, hanging forward, supported by the
back of his neck, was balanced by the seventh bird hung at his back,
suspended from the barrel of his musket. Thus laden like a pack donkey,
he threaded the thick woods, avoiding as best he could the tangled
vines and dangerous stump holes, and came at last to the open clearing
of “Cotton Hill.” Here he laid down his burden and rested, “fuh ketch
me secun’ win’.” Half an hour later he took up his load and, mindful
of the fact that he had been poaching, avoided the direct way through
the fields to the settlement and, skirting the old ricefield, traversed
with furtive eye the negro burying ground where, shaded by giant
live-oaks, seven generations of slaves and freedmen slept under the
thick mould. For many of the far-scattered family negroes still bring
their dead to rest in these hallowed places on the old plantations.
Apart from the sentiment, it gives them standing among the low-caste
darkeys who had belonged to “po’ buckruh” and whose forbears slept in
no ancestral graveyards. Passing behind the “Echo Oak,” Sabey reached
the big road and, a quarter of a mile beyond, tramped boldly up the
great avenue to sell “Mas’ Rafe” his own game. He made a dramatic
entrance into the yard, his deformed body completely covered by the
splendid birds, their black beards hanging from their burnished breasts
and their feet nearly touching the ground. The hounds, which had run
out with bristling backs and open mouths at the unwonted sight, wagged
their tails and whimpered as they caught the familiar scent of the game.
“Well, you copper-colored imp of Satan! Where did you shoot those
turkeys?”
“Uh shoot’um Beabuh Dam.”
“No, Sabey. Beaver Dam is more than two miles off, and I heard a gun in
the Stackyard.”
“Yaas, suh, but duh Beabuh Dam uh shoot’um. Uh mek uh bline’ on da’
po’ buckruh’ groun’, ’cause him all-time duh mek bline’ ’puntop’uh
yo’ groun’, en’ uh shoot him tuckrey fuh pay’um back, en’ uh ’spec’
da’ gun you yeddy shoot duh da’ po’ buckruh wuh bin attuh da’ gang
uh tuckrey wuh use een dem dogwood t’icket. Meself been yeddy uh gun
shoot Stackyaa’d w’en uh bin Beabuh Dam.” “Mas’ Rafe” passed his hand
admiringly over the glossy breast of the largest bird while deftly
feeling his crop. “What did you bait these turkeys with?”
“Uh bait’um wid cawn, ’cause uh nebbuh mek no peas las’yeah, needuhso
no rice.”
“Did you work here last week?”
“Yaas, suh, uh wu’k Chuesday and T’ursday ebenin’.”
“What did you do?”
“Uh beat rice, suh.”
“How much rice did you take home in that bag you carried?”
“Eh, eh, Mas’ Rafe! You see me wid bag? You t’ink suh me t’ief yo’
rice? Wuh nyuse me hab fuh rice? Me en’ Bess alltwo lub fuh eat cawn
hom’ny tummuch.”
“You didn’t bait these turkeys with rice, did you?”
“Who? Me! Mas’ Rafe, you hu’t me feelin’s fuh talk ’bout bait dese
tuckrey wid rice! Weh me fuh git rice? Dese tuckrey nebbuh see uh rice
sence dem bawn!”
“How did the rice get in their crops?”
“Dem got rice een dem craw? Mas’ Rafe, dem tuckrey mus’be bin spang
Willtown dis mawnin’ fuh use een Baa’nwell’ ricefiel’, en’ full dem
craw, en’ attuh dat dem come six mile to de bline’ weh uh kill’um.”
“But it is only five miles from Willtown to Beaver Dam, Sabey, and six
miles to the Stackyard, where you _didn’t_ kill the turkeys!”
Completely cornered, Sabey grinned. “Mas’ Rafe, you sho’ hab uh good
onduhstan’ fuh know nigguh! Nigguh ent fuh fool you! No, suh!”
And then the former slaveholder bought the game shot on his own land
and baited with his own grain, from the freedman who had stolen both,
which is not infrequently the way of former slave-holders in dealing
with former slaves.
THE GATOR HUNTER