“You go, I’m a-stayin’ right here.”

Will made a threatening gesture, I shrank back, he laughed, stood up and nonchalantly walked the twelve-inch beam to the corner post, dropped down the pegged ladderway to the floor, disappeared. Uncomfortably I watched him leave. I knew I’d be in trouble if I didn’t follow. Not that Will would ever tell on me, any more than he’d tell on anybody. But the old man would growl at him, badger him. Anyhow I needed the wages. Another tough poker game coming up Saturday night.

They were halfway to the cornfield when I ran to catch up. Paw carried the twelve-gauge and two fresh-sharpened corncutters—one for me. The beagle hounds ranged ahead, quartering left and right, reading the ground. The sun was noon high but low in the south, obscured by a gray scud of overcast. A raw wind blew in from the northwest. I turned down the earflaps on my brand-new corduroy hunting cap. Proud of that cap. The field corn was ripe but the leaves and stalks appeared a rusty green; that’s why we were cutting and stacking it now, husking later.

The old man wore his usual autumn outfit: the billed cap, the tan canvas hunting coat with last year’s hunting license in celluloid case pinned between the shoulders. Under the coat he wore bib overalls, felt boots buckled tight around the pantlegs.

We attacked the standing corn. Paw took the outside row next to the rail fence, Will the next, me the third. When we each had an armful Paw took our loads in his big hands, holding the bundle vertical, and mashed it down onto the sharp stubble. The bundle stood upright on its own to become the center of a shock, a tepee, a wigwam of corn.

Paw set a hard pace. Will kept up with him but I had trouble. My back seemed to hurt; I lacked motivation. Will was big, strong for his age and enjoyed the work—actually thought it important.

We reached the end of the field, or they did, where the big woods comes down the hill from Frank Gatlin’s place. Paw and Will started their return, passing me going in the opposite direction. My corncutter clashed against Will’s—a flash of sparks—and for a moment we struggled hand to hand, sword against sword, like Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in Captain Blood.

“Cut that out,” growls the old man, “afore one of you gets hurt.”

The beagles burst into yelps of discovery, off and running. They’d jumped a rabbit. Paw set his machete down carefully, didn’t want to nick that fine-honed edge, and picked up the shotgun. He broke it open, loaded two shells into the breech, snapped it shut. Thumb on the safety, he watched the dogs.

They were coursing up the slope of the field by the edge of the woods. Fifty feet before them ran the rabbit, white tail bobbing through the weeds, the auburn grass, the copper-colored blackberry vines. The rabbit veered to the right, traversing the brown hayfield above the corn. The circle was beginning. None of us moved a step. Soon the rabbit would turn right again and come bounding through the corn toward us, followed by the eager hounds. Would be a tough shot, though, in the standing corn, unless the rabbit was stupid enough to cross the wide swath of six-inch stubble before us.