<TITLE>19. Par 63-65</TITLE>L-63 Now... And Burt would just do that because I was a preacher. He'd just make me feel bad. He'd say, "Aw, you chicken-hearted preachers," like that. He thought he was a big rough guy.
So one year I went up there, and he'd made him a little bitty whistle. And he could go like a little fawn. That's a baby deer crying for its mammy. And he'd--he'd blow this little whistle. If you ever heard a fawn cry, it's a funny little noise.
And I said, "Burt, you're not going to use that?"
He said, "Aw, go on, Billy. Get next to yourself."
And well, we went hunting that day, and there was about six inches of snow, good tracking snow, little late in the season. Well now, it's hard to find them white tail deer. As soon as the first shot fires, brother, you talk about Houdini, the escape artist, he was a amateur to them. They can get away, and they won't come out. You have to get them out of them brush, shake them out of there some way, 'cause they'll hide, lay down and crawl under brush piles, everything, get away. Lot of hunters...
That's the reason you had to be on the moment, shoot quick, fast, everything, to get your deer. And Burt and I used to do real well. But he'd wanted to murder them. He'd get two, three, four, five, anything he could, just to make fun, just to laugh at it. Then laugh at me.

L-64 One day up there we'd went back in the woods, and it got about dinner time. We always carried a jug of--of hot chocolate, kind of warms you up where if you get turned around somewhere, and have to stay out overnight. We'd always carry a little lunch. And we'd hunt up through the Presidential range, Mount Washington, Adams, over Cherry Mountain, so forth, a beautiful country. And we'd went way up into the Caul's Gap, and up in that way. And we'd been up way high, and we'd hunted up to about eleven o'clock.
We come to a little clearing about the size of this auditorium, and Burt kindy hunkered down like this, started back in his bosom. I thought, "Well, we're going to set down and eat our dinner." We usually separated, and one go one way, and one the other, going back, coming up the mountain, hunt back down, one take one slope, and the other one the other one, going back. And so he set down, and I started to set down too.

L-65 And I seen he was reaching in his pocket. And he got that little old whistle. And I thought... I said, "Burt, you wouldn't do that." He just laughed. He had eyes looked just like a lizard to me, kind of them lizard-looking eyes set sideways. He looked up at me, kind of halfway grin with that, looked like a sheep-killing dog. And he took this little old whistle in his mouth, and he blowed just like a little baby fawn crying. And when he did, to my surprise, right across that opening a big doe raised up.
Now, a doe is a mother deer, if you wouldn't know. Oh, she was a beautiful specie, great big pretty ears, those big, brown eyes a shining. I looked at her. And he looked up at me with them lizard eyes. I said, "Burt, you wouldn't do that." Now, that--that's strange. They won't raise up that time of day like that. They'll stay...
But what was it? She was a mother. A baby was crying. And I watched her again. I'd see her with that big head up looking around, big ears sticking up. And he blowed it again: cried like a baby. She stepped right out into the opening. Oh, that was very unusual. They don't do that. I see her step out there in that opening.


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