The sky was just reddening when I came down next morning and commenced to get my gun and accoutrements, to try my hand at hunting. Father called me as I was about to leave the house, and told me to come to the back door. There I found a negro boy, thirteen or fourteen years of age, in his shirt sleeves, a clean white shirt, and copperas checked pants, held up by suspenders of the same cloth, fastened on them by little sticks; one hand resting up against the house, and one bare foot scratching the top of the other.

“John,” said father, as I came out in the porch, gun in hand, “this is Reuben, one of Hannah’s children. You may take him for your valet. He knows all the best hunting and fishing places around here. When you go to Goldsboro’ you can get him some more suitable livery.”

“Thank you, sir; he will suit me exactly. How do you like it, Reuben?”

Reuben could only snicker and rub his hand on the weather boarding, as an acknowledgment of his favor.

“I am about to start hunting now; can you carry me to a place where I can kill some squirrels?”

“Yes, sir; ef I c’n git Unker Jack’s Trip, and go over ‘gin the big spring field, you kin find a sight on ’em.”

“Well, run and get Trip, and come on.”

He ran down to the quarters, and soon came back with a little blue-spotted, curl-tailed dog, which he declared could “find ’em eben ef dey wan’t dere!”

After getting over fences, jumping ditches, tramping through dewy grass, and breaking through wet corn till my feet were drenched and my clothes saturated, we at last struck the woods. What splendid woods they were for hunting. Dignified, patriarchal oaks, matronly cedars, young dandy hickories, love-sick maiden-pines, that sighed in the breeze, and families of saplings! Reuben here thought we would find the game, and told Trip to “look about.” The little canine obeyed, and was soon out of sight.

We moved cautiously about, listening; nor did we have to wait very long before Reuben recognized his short, quick bark, and, with the ejaculation, “dat’s him,” ran rapidly towards the place. I followed as fast as the nature of the undergrowth would permit, and we soon found Trip sitting on his tail, under a large oak, whose thick leaves concealed all but the lowest branches. I looked long and vainly towards the top; nothing could I see but the deep green leaves. Reuben, however, got off some distance from the tree, and, walking backwards, and looking with hand-shaded eyes, soon cried out, “Yon he is; cum year, marse John; you c’n see ‘im.” I ran eagerly to him, and gazed intently to where he pointed, and by his continued indications of the exact limb and fork, I was at last persuaded that I did see a small gray knot near the body of the tree. I levelled my gun and fired; all was still for awhile, and then the shot came pattering back on the trees a little way off. Another shot, and the gray knot ran out to the end of the limb.

“Dat’s him; I know’d it was,” shouted Reuben, while I was so much excited I could hardly load. Before I could get the shot down the squirrel sprang from the tree to another, the slender twigs bending under him, and the wet leaves showering down the dew. But Reuben and Trip were watching, and soon found him in a fairer place. I now aim more carefully, and fire; he falls several feet, then catches and recovers himself; another barrel, and he turns under limb, holding on by his feet. Before I can load again he slowly releases, foot by foot, his hold upon the limb, and comes tumbling headlong down, striking the ground with a heavy sound. Reuben and Trip are in great glee over it, while I look on with assumed indifference, for it is my first squirrel, though I had played great destruction among the rice birds near town.

I was just putting the caps on my gun when I was startled by the report of another gun close at hand. I soon heard the thumping of the ramrod, and a little while after the bushes parted, and the long figure of Ben Bemby emerged, his gray eyes gleaming under a broad wool hat without any band, and his scarred lip drawn into a smile. A large bunch of squirrels hung in his hand, and a long single-barrel gun rested on his shoulder.

“Mornin’. What luck?” he said, resting his gun on the ground, and throwing back his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with his forefinger.

“One fine fellow,” I said, holding my trophy up.

Ben chuckled a little, and said:

“Four shots to one; that’s sorter bad. I got seven outer nine. That ere little pop-stick of yourn won’t reach these trees.”

I did not fancy any slur on the shooting qualities of my gun, which was a very handsome Wesley Richards, a present from father the winter before, and I offered to prove that it would shoot as far as his.

“Jumerlacky! Why, I can fetch a squrl when he is outer sight with this old gun.”

“How do you aim at him?” I inquired, smiling at his earnestness.

“I just git me a hicker nut hull, with the print where a squrl’s been a cuttin’, and rub it in the shot, and when I fire, don’t keer which way I takes sight, the shot goes right arter the squrl what cut the nut, and all I got to do is to look roun’ and see what tree he’s a gwine to fall from.”

I expressed a great desire to see his gun perform, and asked if he had killed any that morning without seeing them.

“Not ‘zactly,” he replied, changing his squirrels from one hand to the other; “but one run up such a high tree he got t’other side of a cloud.”

“How did you get at him?”

“Jus’ shot wher he went thew; when he drapped he was right smarten wet, an’ it rained purtty peart thew the shot holes in the cloud.”

“Which one of those was it?” I asked, pointing to the bunch in his hand.

“This here biggest un,” he said, holding him up by the tail.

“Why, he doesn’t seem to be wet now?”

“Nor; he dried, like, comin’ thew the air.”

I was uncertain whether he was a little flighty or was trying to quiz me, thinking I was city-green, and a look into his laughing grey eye rather confirming this last supposition, I was about to change the conversation, when Trip’s bark a little way off in the woods called our attention to him. We found the squirrel in the very top of a tree that did almost seem in the clouds.

“Lemme see you knock him out wi’ your little double-bar’l toot-a-poo.”

With the steadiest aim I could command, I gave him both barrels, one after the other, with no result whatever, my piece being a short bird gun, and the tree top an immense distance from the ground.

Ben said, “Now, let the old gal speak,” and sighting the old brown barrel a second, he fired. The squirrel made a frantic leap into the air, and fell right into Trip’s mouth. Reuben was in a dance of excitement, but felt that he must take my gun’s part.

“Marse John’s gun’s new; ‘taint got used to shootin’ yet.”

“What d’you know ‘bout guns, you little devil’s ink ball?” said Ben, turning to Reuben; “why d’nt you open your mouth when Satan was a paintin’ you, and git some black on your teeth. Well, Mr. Smith, less knock along todes home; its mos’ your breakfus time.”

“Won’t you go and take breakfast with me?”

“Nor, siree. Th’ old man said I was fool ‘nough last night to last a seas’n; but I’ll come in short to see them ladies agin, for sho’ they’re fine ‘uns.”

“You must be sure to come. You think they are pretty, do you?”

“Well, I do exactly that thing. I’ve got a gal nigh here I thought was some on purtty, but she ain’t a pint cup to these here.”

“Which do you think is the best looking?”

“That’s ‘bout as hard to tell as buyin’ knives. That ere curly head un is five mules and a bunch er bells, and ef ‘twant for t’other would beat the world; but that black-eyed un, wh’sh! She c’n jus’ look at you, and make you set still forever. Why, you c’n run er fishin’ pole in her eyes up to the hand’l and never tech bott’m.”

“Polyphemus would be a mole to her, if her eyes were as deep as that,” I replied, laughing at his extravagance.

“I never heerd of Polly Whatchoucallem, but ef she looked like this ere wun, I’d trade Viney Dodge for her, and giv ’em boot.”

“I expect Miss Viney will soon have cause for jealousy?”

“Nor, siree. Miss Kerlotter, I think the old lady sed her name was, is a darned sight too fine for me. You can’t sew silk truck on to homespun; and Viney suits my cloth the bes’, for she’s three treddle sarge, and a thread to spare.”

There was a fork here in the path, and we separated. I reached home just as the family were sitting down to breakfast. I exhibited my game, and was complimented for my skill.

After breakfast I went to the library, while the girls busied themselves aiding mother in her domestic arrangements. Before leaving the table they made me promise to take them fishing in the evening, or rather Lulie did, for Carlotta expressed her preference for remaining at home with mother, and I saw in her face that her intuitive tact had taught her that I preferred to be alone with Lulie. She was tenderly devoted to mother, and would often leave gay, frolicsome Lulie to sit by her, and talk on “grown up” subjects, as Lulie would call them. With father she was reserved, though respectful and grateful, and studied to please him in every way. Toward me she was gentle and kind, but shy, as if she was afraid of being teased about me.

I cannot describe my feelings for her. There was a thrill every time I met those great black eyes that I had never felt before, but I could not call it love, for Lulie engrossed all there was of that in my nature.

There was a magnetism about her that affected me strongly, and made me feel that, were we at all intimate, she would possess an unbounded influence over me, and that its exercise would constitute my supreme happiness.

The tender pity and brotherly love I had expected to feel were all gone, for she did not need them; the vast resources of her own deep soul, and the sympathy and love of mother, seemed to be enough for her. In all my thoughts I could only long for her friendship, and I felt that if I could awaken in her an interest in me as a friend, so that I could go to her ear and tell my troubles or joys, I would be the happier. In the common converse of our family circle I always looked to her first after my remarks, and her smile was a far greater reward to me than Lulie’s, perhaps because it meant more. And if I had done wrong I would rather ten times Lulie should know it than Carlotta; yet, with all these feelings, resembling so much indices of love, there was no spark of it in my heart. Her very beauty seemed to fix a great gulf between us, and down in my soul I felt that she would never love me, except as a member of the same family. With these thoughts came the image of Lulie—bright, laughing Lulie—whose heart I could get so near to, if I could not call it mine; who was something human, like myself, and whom I loved so tenderly without the slightest shade of awe. And I longed for the time when I could tell her of it.