If you ever try to write your autobiography, you’ll find that experiences jump into your mind fresh, forcing you to feel those original emotions again. You’ll be overwhelmed at what you can remember, and if you’re like me, you’ll stumble on time sequences.
The reason is that when we’re tiny we have little sense of time. If you are five years old, then one year represents twenty percent of your life experience. When you’re fifty, one year represents two percent of your experiences.
Those early memories are primary colors, pure and intense. They’re also a jumble. School eventually imposes an order on you and on time.
That fall of 1950 meant going to school for the first time. It also meant hunting.
PopPop Harmon, Juts’s stepfather, kept hounds, as did some of Dad’s relatives. Night hunters, these old fellows (most of them born in the 1870s and 1880s) would take out four or five couple of hounds and let them rip. These hunts would be liberally fueled by white lightning or store-bought liquor.
Arguments over which was the better hound—coonhounds, foxhounds, Beagles, Plott Hounds, Walker Hounds—kept these veterans of the Spanish-American War and World War I fighting all over again. Who needed Kaiser Bill to fight when tiny Verduns existed in your own backyard?
PopPop believed no hound could beat a Walker for drive and nose. You couldn’t beat them for stubbornness, either. Much as he admired them he liked American Foxhounds best.
His rheumy eyes would light up and his small frame would gain energy as he recounted the wonders of his most recent hunt and the glories of Belle, his best bitch.
Naturally, I begged to be taken along. Finally, Mother relented as long as Dad accompanied me, so that if I became a pest I wouldn’t spoil a good night’s hunting for “the boys.”
“The boys” gathered on a high meadow between Spring Grove and Hanover that first weekend of school. Some walked, their obedient hounds trailing behind them. Others chugged down country roads in pickup trucks built in the 1930s. Everyone operated on the principle “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Also, if something still worked, you didn’t replace it with a new one. People were far more practical then. The paint jobs on those vehicles displayed the relentless passage of time, as did the faces of the hunters. Few bothered to shave unless their wives fussed at them. Everyone wore suspenders, chewed tobacco and smelled like ’shine and chocolate. I loved them.
PopPop introduced me as Juts’s girl. Everyone knew Juts, so they embraced me as the novitiate that I was. PopPop had explained to me the ways of red foxes. I knew catching the quarry wasn’t likely. I also understood that I was there to listen to the “music.”
PopPop had a stud hound, Toby, that ran silent. I asked him why he kept such a hound, since hearing them is half of the fun. He said he’d tell me later, but he always forgot to tell me. He also warned me not to talk about Toby’s peculiarity. That was our secret.
Belle’s prowess, greatly appreciated on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, drew admirers seeking to upgrade their hounds. A burly fellow named Harve, his shirt slightly open above his pants, offered PopPop fifty dollars for Belle. That was a fortune then, especially for PopPop, who didn’t have two nickels to rub together, the result of drink more than laziness. He’d stay off the sauce for a good stretch and then that devil alcohol would seize him again. It was a pity because he was a good man.
Dad nearly passed out when PopPop refused. Then the man tried to borrow her for twenty dollars to get a litter out of her. PopPop said he wouldn’t do that either but he’d let the man know when he bred her. He wanted to control the bloodlines. Harve again pushed to buy her outright for fifty dollars, thinking repetition would wear down PopPop.
Pushing never worked with anyone in our family. PopPop shook his head. Belle, a sleek Black-and-Tan with a white throat, sat next to Beulah, a good hound although not as good as Belle. They had no interest in the financial discussion.
A skinny man got up on the back of his truck and said, “Let ’em go,” and go they did. Dad put me on his shoulders so I could watch the various hounds put their noses to the ground, tails or sterns up. A little wiggle meant “This is interesting.” A feathering meant “I’m about ready to roll,” and when a hound bayed or gave tongue, that meant “Ready, set, go!” The first time I heard that sound the hair stood up on the back of my neck, my heart raced and I wanted to run after the hounds. Still takes me that way.
Belle’s voice, midrange, carried. You knew where she was even if far away. A good hound can cover forty or fifty miles and return ready to play with you. I heard deep voices, light voices, yippy voices and Belle’s distinctive bel canto.
I was worried that the hounds would kill a fox, even though PopPop told me that hardly ever happened. Dad said foxes were smarter than hounds and lots smarter than we were. Truer words were never spoken.
Dad, as I said, liked gun dogs. If he was going to hunt, he wanted to eat the quarry. Pheasant, grouse and wild turkey, fixed by Mom and Aunt Mimi, sent you back to the table for more. Since you can’t eat a fox or a raccoon, Dad shied off from night hunting. He knew good hound work when he saw it, though.
A slight chill rolled up even though it had been a hot day. Those early September days can fry you. The nights will surprise you with cold. Dad handed me my jacket. The hounds cried far away, then the sound came closer.
PopPop, his grin about as big as his small face, said, “Hear my girl?”
We could. No one sounded like her.
Harve was fit to be tied. He had to own that hound.
Night magnifies sounds. The stars seemed so low I thought I could pluck one out of the dark sky.
Belle worked in a copse near us, the other hounds with her, and the sound carried to heaven. Then Belle shut up. She shot over the meadow, the other hounds behind her, and she ran right up to PopPop, dropping an umbrella at his feet.
Harve laughed so hard he nearly fell off his truck. If he’d had another swig, I think he would have plopped face first in the cut-over hay.
“Harmon, I wouldn’t give you five cents for that hound now.”
The men laughed. In those days no gentleman would swear in front of a lady, so even though they might have thought “damn” or “shit” or worse, they’d die before they’d say it.
PopPop took the umbrella from Belle, patted her. Beulah was next to her, so he patted her too.
“Good girls. Good girls.”
Meanwhile Harve was whooping it up, carrying on like sin.
PopPop smelled the umbrella. “Sniff, Buzzer.”
I sniffed, stepped back, wrinkled my nose. My eyes watered.
“What’s it smell like?” he inquired in his soft voice.
“A skunk.”
“Sniff again.”
I did. “Kinda like a skunk and kinda like something else.”
Dad tested the umbrella’s scent, too. He blinked his eyes.
“That’s a fox. Like a sweet skunk.” PopPop patted the hounds again and then patted my back as though I were one of the hounds. He strolled over to Harve, handing him the umbrella.
“Expecting rain, Harmon?” Oh, he laughed and hollered.
“Your nose still working, Harve?”
“Sure is.” Harve inhaled over the umbrella. “Uh …”
“Let me have that,” another younger man said. He took a whiff. Then he handed it to the man next to him. The umbrella made the rounds.
A moment of silence followed, since “the boys” knew a fox when they smelled it.
PopPop took me by the hand, Belle and Beulah at his heels, to walk back home.
Harve, shamed now, grew sullen. He yelled at PopPop, “How’d that umbrella get out here?”
PopPop stopped and replied, “When I walk on water, I’ll let you know.”