One of Clarence's friends had a fox hound that we would keep with us for fox hunting. His name was "Shimmer-boo" and he was large. One Christmas vacation we got snowed in and the fellow who owned the dog came after us in a truck. I lost three days of school which was a treat. We slipped and slid around in the snow on the hill, but finally made it up the hill, on to home and back to school. We all rode in the front seat of the truck with that big smelly dog on my lap all the way home. You know how big and gangly those fox hounds are. I'll never forget that ride home. We had a trapdoor in the floor of the cabin with a four foot square pit dug out beneath. We would store foodstuffs down there where it was cooler. There were all kinds of nut trees around and at one time we had two bushels of butternuts, one of walnuts and two of hickory nuts (all shucked) down under the floor. After they were there a couple of years we took them out and burned them in the fireplace. Two bushels of hickory nuts would be worth a fortune now. Halfway up the hill on our property there was a pine tree about three feet through the trunk and very tall. The limbs came straight out of the trunk so you could climb up it just like you were climbing a ladder. About forty feet up I built a platform and used it for my secret hideaway. I could see down to the road and when we were expecting company, I would go up there and watch for them. We used to do a lot of partridge hunting and there was an older man by the name of Bill Brooks who went along with us, without a gun, just for the joy of walking in the woods. He carried a flask of whiskey and every so often would stop to sit on a tree stump and have another nip. He never bothered our hunting and was nice to have along. He was the father of one of the girls Gordon used to go out with.