ing, washing, and cooking. She took
care of her "two men" as she phrased it proudly--her husband and her
great-bodied son--as if they were helpless children.

* * * * *

"We're going a-huntin' to-day, Johnny,--wan' ter come along?"

"Sure!"

"Wall, git ready, then!"

But first Paul fed the hounds out in the yard ... huge slabs of white
bread spread generously with lard. This was all they ever got, except
the scraps from the table, which were few. They made a loud, slathering
noise, gulping and bolting their food.

* * * * *

But we started off without the hounds.

"Ain't you going to take the dogs along?"

"Nope."

"Why not--ain't we going to hunt rabbits?"

"Yep."

"Then why not take them?"

"Put your hand in my right hand pocket an' find out!"

I stuck my hand down, and it was given a vicious bite by a white,
pink-eyed ferret Paul was carrying there. I yelled with pain and
surprise. I pulled my hand up in the air, the ferret hanging to a
finger. The ferret dropped to the ground. Paul stooped and picked it up,
guffawing. It didn't bite him. It knew and feared him. That was his idea
of a joke, the trick he played on me!

"Yew might git blood-pisen from that bite!" teased Josh, to scare me.
But I remained unscared. I sucked the blood from the tiny punctures,
feeling secure, after I had done it. I remembered how Queen Eleanore had
saved the life of Richard Coeur de Lion in the Holy Land, when he had
been bitten by an adder, by sucking out the venom. I enjoyed the thrill
of a repeated historic act.

"If we got ketched we'd be put in jail fer this!" remarked Josh with
that sly, slow smile of his; "it ain't the proper season to hunt
rabbits in, an' it's agin the law, in season or out, to hunt 'em with
ferrets," and he chuckled with relish over the outlawry of it.

We came to a hole under a hollow tree. Paul let the ferret go down,
giving him a preliminary smack.

"Mind you, Jim,--God damn you,--don't you stay down that hole too long."

"Think he understands you?"

"In course he does: jest the same es you do."

"And why would Jim stay down?"

"He might corner the rabbit, kill him, an' stay to suck his blood ...
but Jim knows me ... I've given him many's the ungodly whipping for
playing me that trick ... but he's always so greedy and hongry that
sometimes the little beggar fergits."

"And then how do you get him out again?"

"Jest se