Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 Part 1

Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880.

by Various.

RABBITS TO FIND.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

"I say, Tad Murray, what's made you so late with your cows this morning?"

"Late? Well, I guess you'd be late if you'd had such a time as I did. It was all old Ben's fault."

"Ben's? Why, there he is now, chasing the brindled heifer. If she'd only turn on him, she could pitch him over the fence like a forkful of hay."

"He's a better cow-dog than that ragged little terrier of yours, Carr Hotchkiss; but he's an awful fellow to let into a corn field, 'specially 'bout this time of year."

"Into a corn field!"

"When there's a lot of rabbits in the shocks."

"Are there rabbits in your corn?"

"It's just alive with 'em. And Ben he gets after 'em, and the corn's all cut and shocked, and he'll tear a shock of corn to pieces in no time; and father says it's too bad, for he hasn't any time to kill rabbits."

"Tell you what, Tad, Whip's the best dog in the world for rabbits."

"Is he?"

"He wouldn't hurt a shock of corn if he scratched clean through it. I'll fetch him along soon's you get your cows in; and we'll get Dan Burrel and Eph McCormick and Frank Perry, and we'll have the biggest rabbit hunt you ever heard of."

"Don't I wish I had a gun!"

"Father's got one, but he won't let me put a finger on it."

"So's my father got one. It's a splendid good gun, too, but one of the triggers is gone, and there's a hole you could stick your finger into in the right barrel, where it got bursted once."

"We don't want any guns. You hurry your cows in. There! the brindled heifer's given Ben an awful dig."

"He won't care."

Old Ben did care, however, for he left the brindled heifer suddenly, and came back toward the boys, with his wise-looking head c.o.c.ked on one side, as much as to say, "Didn't I hear you two saying something about rabbits?"

It was less than half an hour before they were telling him a good deal about that kind of game. They gathered the rest of their hunting party on their way back to Squire Murray's, only they did not waste any time going to the house. It was a shorter cut through the wheat stubble and the wood lot to the big corn field in the hollow.

Corn, corn, corn. Squire Murray said he had never before raised so good a crop in all his life. And then he had added that the rabbits and squirrels and woodchucks were likely to be his best market, for they were husking it for him, and not charging him a cent. Only they carried off all they husked without paying for it, and he was compelled to charge that part of his crop to "rabbit account."

The old squire loved a bit of fun as well as anybody, and it was a pity he could not have been in his own corn field that morning.

Tad Murray had to catch hold of old Ben the moment they were over the fence, for he half buried himself in the nearest shock of corn the first thing.

"Oh dear! if there was only one of 'em in sight, so he'd have something to run after!"

"Whip! Whip!" shouted Carr Hotchkiss. "Rabbits, Whip--rabbits!"

Whip had been dancing around the shock as if the ground under him were red-hot, and he couldn't keep his feet on any one spot for two seconds; but now he made a sudden dive into the gap from which Tad had pulled out old Ben.

"Find 'em, Whip--find 'em!"

"There's a rabbit in there somewhere," said Dan Burrel, in a loud, earnest whisper.

"Look out you don't scare him," whispered back Eph McCormick; and Frank Perry picked up a long stiff corn stalk, and began to poke it in at every crack he could find.

"Don't, Frank; you'll scare the rabbit."

"Scare him, Eph? Why, that's just what we're up to. If we don't scare him, he won't come out."

There was a loud whine from Whip at that moment, and a sound of very vigorous pawing and scratching away in out of sight.

"Do rabbits ever bite?" said Frank, excitedly.

"Rabbits? bite a dog?" said Carr, scornfully. "I'd back Whip all alone against all the rabbits Squire Murray's got."

Another whine from Whip, and more pawing and rustling in that mysterious place he had scratched into. Every boy of them wished he were in there with a double-barrelled gun or something.

"Tad," said Frank Perry, "maybe it isn't a rabbit. Maybe it's something big."

"Woodchucks?"

"Are there any 'c.o.o.ns around here nowadays?"

"Haven't seen any; but the rabbits are awful big ones, some of 'em."

Yelp, yelp, yelp, from the dog inside, and his voice had a smothered and anxious sound.

"He's got him!" exclaimed Tad. But he had better have kept his hold upon Ben for a moment longer. It had been pretty hard work the last minute or so, for Ben understood every sound Whip had been making. All it had meant really was: "Ben! boys! there's a rabbit here, and he keeps just about a foot ahead of me. He's three sizes smaller than I am, and he can get through the shock faster. One of you be on the look-out for him on that further side."

The instant Tad loosened his arms from around Ben's neck, the sagacious old fellow sprang forward--not at the hole where Whip went in, but straight across, where there was no hole at all, till he came to make one.

There was a big one there before any boy of them all knew what Ben was up to. How the corn stalks did fly as he pawed his way in and tore them aside with his great strong teeth! If he was not much of a hand at setting up a shock, he was a mouth and four paws at pulling one down.

"Ben! Ben!" shouted Tad. "Come here! Rabbits, Ben--rabbits! Come here, sir."

As if Ben needed anybody to say "rabbits" to him, after he had listened to all that anxious whimpering from Whip!

"Shake the shock a little," said Dan Burrel. "He's in there somewhere."

He suited the action to the word, but that was all that was needed, and down it came, flat on the ground, with a big dog and a small one and five excited boys tearing around among the ruins.