Two Ways of Becoming a Hunter

"I declare, Frank, it is time we were off. It is almost nine o'clock. I wish to goodness there were no such things as school-houses and school-books in the world."

"I am not going to school to-day."

"You're not?"

"No, sir. I'm going to take French leave."

"Do you mean that you are going to run away?"

"I suppose that is what you country fellows call it."

"Well, now, you had better take a friend's advice, and think twice before you do that. You'll get yourself into trouble, sure. The rule of our school is that you must bring a written excuse every time you are absent."

"That was the rule of our school in Boston, too; but it didn't keep the fellows from staying away whenever they felt like it."

"Where did you get your excuses?"

"We wrote them ourselves, and signed our father's name to them; that's the way we got them."

"You can't fool our teacher that way. He knows our hand-writing too well. He knows yours, too, by this time."

"I can disguise it so that he'll not recognize it, I bet you! Don't let's go, Leon. I am heartily sick of school, and everything connected with it."

"So am I."

"Then suppose we spend the day in the woods."

The conversation above recorded took place, one gloomy autumn morning, between Leon Parker and his city cousin, Frank Fuller.

They were about sixteen years of age, and were bright, honest-looking boys; but one of them, at least, was just the opposite of what he appeared to be.

Leon Parker lived in the little town of Eaton, in one of our Northern States. His father was a practising lawyer, and the boy was given every opportunity to prepare himself for usefulness in after-life. But Leon was too indolent to study, and the consequence was that he always stood at the foot of his class, and saw boys younger than himself carry off the honors he might have won if he had been willing to work for them.

Leon was not such a boy as you would have chosen for a companion. He was cross and overbearing, and his father was often obliged to take him to task for some of his misdeeds.

This always made him very angry. Other boys seemed to get on without having the least trouble with their parents or anybody else, and Leon finally came to the conclusion that his father was a tyrant, and that he would be much happier if he could go so far away from him that he would never see him again. And yet there were a good many boys in Eaton who would have been glad to change places with him.

While his father insisted that he should behave himself, he was, at the same time, very indulgent, and he had supplied Leon with a good many things which the majority of the boys in Eaton regarded as necessary to their happiness. He owned a beautiful little skiff, a jointed bass rod, and a light fowling-piece. He had ample opportunity to use them, too.

The country about the village was hilly, almost mountainous; the woods and thickets were dense, and grouse, quails, and gray and black squirrels could be bagged any day without the slightest trouble. Foxes were more abundant than the neighboring farmers wished they were, deer were shot within sight of the court house every winter, and now and then a bear or wildcat was seen among the hills.

In summer, the river which flowed in front of the village offered black and rock bass, pike and perch. In the fall it was visited by thousands of wild ducks, which stopped there to rest during their migrations, and some of them were so well satisfied with the feeding-grounds they found there that they remained all winter.

The most of the boys in Eaton thought it was a nice place to live, but Leon, as we have said, was very discontented; and matters were made worse by the arrival of his cousin, Frank Fuller, who was sent to Eaton because he could not be managed at home.

It was understood among the boys to whom he had been introduced that he had come there for the purpose of attending the high school of which the village boasted, and, indeed, his father's instructions were that he was not to miss a single day. He had been there just two weeks, and now he was talking of playing truant.

Mr. Parker already regretted that he had consented to receive his nephew into his house. He began to fear that his influence over Leon would be anything but beneficial.

He had already detected him in numberless falsehoods, and had discovered that, in spite of his apparent frankness, he was as sneaking and sly as a boy could possibly be. And Frank, too, was sorry that he had ever come to Eaton. He was disgusted with the quiet life he led at his uncle's house, and heartily wished himself back in Boston.

"Let's go up on the hill and look at these snares you told me about the other day," continued Frank. "We may find a partridge or two in them."

"That's so," exclaimed Leon. "I never should have thought of them again. But it will be awful slow walking about the woods all day without our guns."

"Oh, we'll take them with us!"

"But how can we carry them downstairs, and out of the house, without being seen by somebody?"

"We'll do it--you may depend upon that," answered Frank, as he disappeared in a closet opening off the room in which he and his cousin slept.

When he came out again, he carried a light, silver-mounted rifle in one hand and a game-bag and powder-horn in the other.

"We must have something to eat, too. It gives one a fearful appetite to climb over these hills. You go and get the lunch just as if we were going to school, and then come out to the barn, and you will find me there with the guns."

To this Leon silently assented, and went into the closet after his hunting accoutrements, which he handed over to Frank.

While the latter was slinging the game-bag and the powder- and shot-flasks over his shoulders, Leon opened the door and ran downstairs.

In the hall he met his mother.

"I was just coming to call you," said she. "You boys will be late at school if you do not make haste. Your lunch is all ready."

"We're just going to start," said Leon. "But not for school. We have had quite enough of that," he added to himself, as he hurried through the hall and turned into the kitchen.

Cramming the lunch into his pocket, he slipped out of the back door and ran toward the barn.

When Leon reached the barn, he found Frank waiting for him. He had watched his opportunity, and, as soon as his aunt went out of the hall, he descended the stairs, opened the front door, and made his way around the house to the place of meeting.