Letters to His Children — 43. Sports of Quentin and Archie, Skip and Archie, A Turkey Hunt at Pine Knot
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Quentin is the same cheerful pagan philosopher as ever.
He swims like a little duck; rides well; stands quite severe injuries without complaint, and is really becoming a manly little fellow.
Archie is devoted to the _Why_ (sailboat).
The other day while Mother and I were coming in, rowing, we met him sailing out, and it was too cunning for anything.
The _Why_ looks exactly like a little black wooden shoe with a sail in it, and the crew consisted of Archie, of one of his beloved playmates, a seaman from the _Sylph_, and of Skip--very alert and knowing.
SKIP AND ARCHIE
White House, October 23, 1906. DEAR KERMIT:
Archie is very cunning and has handicap races with Skip.
He spreads his legs, bends over, and holds Skip between them.
Then he says, "On your mark, Skip, ready; go!"
and shoves Skip back while he runs as hard as he possibly can to the other end of the hall, Skip scrambling wildly with his paws on the smooth floor until he can get started, when he races after Archie, the object being for Archie to reach the other end before Skip can overtake him.
A TURKEY HUNT AT PINE KNOT
White House, November 4, 1906. DEAR KERMIT:
Just a line to tell you what a nice time we had at Pine Knot.
Mother was as happy as she always is there, and as cunning and pretty as possible.
As for me, I hunted faithfully through all three days, leaving the house at three o'clock one day, at four the next, and at five the next, so that I began my hunts in absolute night; but fortunately we had a brilliant moon on each occasion.
The first two days were failures.
I
did not see a turkey, and on each occasion when everybody was perfectly certain that I was going to see a turkey, something went wrong and the turkey did not turn up.
The last day I was out thirteen hours, and you may imagine how hungry I was when I got back, not to speak of being tired; though fortunately most of the time I was rambling around on horseback, so I was not done out.
But in the afternoon at last luck changed, and then for once everything went right.
The hunter who was with me marked a turkey in a point of pines stretching down from a forest into an open valley, with another forest on its farther side.
I
ran down to the end of the point and hid behind a bush.
He walked down through the pines and the turkey came out and started to fly across the valley, offering me a beautiful side shot at about thirty-five yards--just the distance for my ten-bore.
I killed it dead, and felt mighty happy as it came tumbling down through the air.
