PA’S HUCKLEBERRY HOUND
Ma always said that Pa’s old blue tick hound dog weren’t fittin’ fer nuttin’. I figured she was right fer that their old hound always seemed ter be just ah lyin’ round on the front porch. Hit would raise hit’s old spotted head up and bark if some’ern came in through ourn front gate. Hit didn’t matter if hit were a stranger or if hit were Pa or Ma or one of us youngins. He’s just raise up his head and bark, shake hit back and forth, after the bark as if the loud bark had hurt his ears. His’n big old floppy ears would rap all round his head or sure seemed like they did.
Henney ways, Pa would try and try ter get that there hound to go with him and the neighbor men and there hounds a coon huntin’ Hit just raised up hit’s old head and barked once as they all walked by. Them times like that were the only times Pa seemed to get mad at him.
One day we was all a sittin’ in the fireplace room close to it fer hit was real cold. Snow was a fallin’ and we was all out of meat ter eat. Ma’s pot were a boilin’ but all there were in hit were some green beans, corn, taders and little turnip greens. Ma had put up a lot of garden stuff the summer past. Henney ways we was shor hungry fer some meat. Then that there ole hound barked. Now we knew there were sure sompin or some’ern out there. Pa thought he noed hit wern’t no nabor friend out in that there snow, so he reached fer his double barreled 12 gage shot gun which were on the mantel. He snuck a peek out of the winder and we were sure scared when he started ta easen open the winder a bit. A easin the gun out through the opening, Pa sure looked serious. Wes’un all poked ourn fingers in ourn years and the gun went off.
Pa, he jumps up and runs fer the door. “Bring the big knife, Ma,” he hollers back as he runs out side.
Ma grabbed the big knife offin the table and ran out the door after Pa. We youngins ran out ah followin’ her.
There Pa was ah standin’ over a big buck deer. That there deer’s meat were the best tastin’ meat I ever had eten. Ma never did kick er yell at that old hound after that. She always sweep around him when she sweep the porch for she sure appreciated that one old bark that let us know that sompen were out there in the snow sure.
A few months later on that year we youngins were out au pickin’ huckaberry’s in the woods. We were finding ah few but our buckets were only half full when we walked back to the log cabin fer noon dinner. My youngest sister Jane gave that old blue tick hound a handful of huckaberry’s. He sniffed around on them then gobbled them down quick as a lizard runs under a rock. After dinner, Ma and Pa went with us to hunt more huckaberry’s. The old hound sniffed at Jane’s bucket as she walked by him. To our surprise, he then jumped up and followed us out to the woods. We started picking the scattered scarse berries and the hound nibbled at them on the bush. After a bit he wandered slowly off out into the woods out of sight. Hit weren’t long till we heard the gosh awfullest bad hollering you ever heerd. Hit were the old hound and we knew hit were. We’s all ran fast as we could to see what in the world hit were that had excited Pa’s old hound. As we came into sight of him he were still howlin as loud as he could. He seed us and then stopped and started gobblin’ up some of the biggest huckaberry’s I ever seed. May yelled out that hit must sure be as close to huckaberry heaven as one could find here below on earth. Before we was finished pickin’ all them berry’s, I felt hit were shor’ more like that other place than hit were like heaven.
Pa ner no one else had ever called that old hound anything
But dog or hound but from that day on he were knowed as Pa’s Huckaberry hound. Ever year after that Pa always took Huckaberry Hound to the woods when the berries were ripe. That there ole hound always found the biggest and best berries in all the whole country. That Huckaberry Hound always got excited when berry pickin’ time came around. He ett his fill of them and when they were gone, he went back to restin’ and waitin’ fer next year’s berries.
A.L. Shipman, Jr.
June 30, 1984
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