Snipe Hunting

We arrived back at Dewey’s home in time to clean up for dinner.  We had worked up a man-sized appetite with all the walking in the two tours.  They were unforgettable and well worth the effort.  Dinner was a delicious roast with all the vegetables cooked in the meat broth that was then thickened to a thin gravy consistency.  After we gave a full report on the day’s activity, talk drifted to snipe hunting.  It seemed this was a night sport timed with the full moon.  Dewey observed the moon was perfect and asked me if I had ever been snipe hunting.  I admitted that was one thing I had never hunted and asked how it was done.  A quick decision was made to go on a hunt, though we planned to start back to college early in the morning.  We put on our jacket and piled in the car.  There were five of us, counting Dewey’s brothers and a friend, so we had a car load.  The only tools brought along to catch the snipes were two five gallon pails.

Dewey drove down toward the river where fields of grass and scrub trees dotted the landscape.  He took a side road that was quite bumpy and finally came to a stop.  We got out and Dewey laid out the plan.  He wanted me to man the home base at this spot while the rest of them would drive up the road and fan out in a walking group to drive the snipes my way.  He said they were rather dumb, but were attracted to the sound of a stick pounding on one of the buckets.  I could use the other bucket to sit on and they would come right up close to me and listen to the rhythm.  They aren’t dangerous, so when one gets close, put the bucket over it and wait for the rest of us to show up.  With those instructions firmly in mind I took my seat on the bucket and started to thump on the other bucket with a stick.  The car bumped on down the road until it disappeared over a rise.  I kept up the rhythm like an Indian dance drummer.  I looked at my watch and half an hour of drumming had gone by.  I wondered how far they had gone down the road.  It didn’t seem logical they would be taking in that big an area for the snipe drive.

It started in my stomach and spread upward like a warm flush.  I was being played.  There never was any such thing as a snipe and who knows how long they would let me sit out there until they came back to see how the big hunter was getting along.  At first I felt angry and foolish, but then a saying came to me, “don’t get angry, get even’.  I glanced around and spotted a clump of scrub trees along the road about 20 feet from me.  Picking up my buckets I hurried down the road and hid in the center of the trees.  In 25 minutes I heard a car and then saw the headlights bobbing up and down as it moved toward me over the bumpy road.  It drew up where I was supposed to be and they got out.  They were definitely puzzled about my disappearance.  I could hear them talking and it sounded like they agreed that I had decided to walk back to their home.  Someone voiced alarm that I might get lost.  As they were about to hurriedly load into the car I stepped out into the road and called to them.  “Can some of you come help me with this snipe?”  They hurried to where I stood with one foot holding the bucket firmly to the ground.  When they had all gathered around, eagerly awaiting the removal of the bucket I took my foot off and kicked the bucket aside.  There was a roar of laughter when nothing emerged from the bucket, but I assured them it had taken me a long time to bag this fine snipe.  We all had a good laugh and headed home in good spirits.  I wished I could have caught a little fuzzy animal to put under the bucket.  That would have given everyone a start.

*Taken from "Which Road Should I Follow?, Volume 1, Growing up in the country", an autobiography by Edwin K. Hill.