A Dialogue for Autumn

Corey Ford was a Columbia man, an early member at theAlgonquin Roundtable, a columnist for Field & Stream, and anumcommonly good writer who sensibly emigrated to the greenshores of Hanover. Here, for 17 years until his death in 1969, hewas a friend-in-need to the Dartmouth Rugby Club and Dartmouth wrestlers and boxers and an unofficial writer-in-residencewho peopled his stories with Dartmouth folk, human and canine.In "A Dialogue for Autumn" Cousin Sid is the late SidneyHayward 26, Secretary of the College and Corey's close companion in the field. As the personna in this dialogue testify, there issomething to be treasured in a fall day in New Hampshire and agood deal more to hunting than killing.A Dialogue for Autumn" originally appeared in Field & Stream in 1952 as If They Could Only Talk." It has been re-publishedin The Best of Corey Ford, edited by Jack Samson (Holt,Rinehart and Winston, 1975). © Trustees of Dartmouth College.

Time: Late October. Call it Halloween. The height of the fall color is already past; on the hillsides the birch thickets are bare, and the leaves are off the alders in the swamps. You can see to shoot now. This afternoon the sun was warm, but walking back to the jeep at dusk it felt good to put your hands in your pockets. When you bit into an apple, the juice was cold and hurt your teeth. Probably there'll be a frost tonight, and the woodcock will be moving with the full moon.

Place: A hunting camp. Actually it is Sid Hayward's camp, on the shore of Pleasant Lake. But it could be any hunting camp. A couple of shotguns are standing in the corner with cleaning rags and oil, and two empty gamebags are hanging on the wall, and two pairs of hunting boots are drying before the fire. The portable radio is turned on; the six o'clock news should tell how Dartmouth made out this afternoon against Harvard. A pan of water is heating on the stove, and the room smells of wood smoke and nitro-solvent and pipe tobacco and boot-dubbing and wet dogs - the smell of any hunting camp anywhere.

Characters: Two bird hunters and two bird dogs. The dogs are big rangy English setters, sired by the same father, old Duke de Coverly, the great New England grouse dog. The hunters call each other Cousin Corey and Cousin Sid because their dogs are brothers. Corey's dog is called Cider, because he works in the fall, and Sid's is called John Buchan, after a favorite author, Bucky for short. As the curtain rises, both dogs are lying in front of the fire with their eyes shut, occasionally sighing luxuriously and spreading the pads of their forefeet to the blaze. Sid is peeling some potatoes for supper, and Corey is sipping a Scotch highball.

COREY (Without moving): .Sure I can't help you with these potatoes, Cousin Sidney?

SID: It's okay, Cousin Corey. You just relax. That last hour was pretty rugged.

COREY: I'd sure like to know where those dogs were all afternoon. I bet I walked ten miles looking for Cider. I shouted till I was hoarse.

SID: Usually Bucky comes right to me when I call. He's very well disciplined.

COREY (quickly): I almost never have to shout at Cider. Just wave my hand is all.

SID: They must have been over in the next county somewhere. I couldn't even hear the sound of their bells. You don't suppose Cider got on a rabbit, do you?

COREY (indignantly): Cider never chases rabbits. Maybe Bucky jumped a deer.

SID (bristling): Buck doesn't run deer.

(As their voices rise Cider stirs and opens his eyes. Bucky's muzzle is resting across Cider's flank; he lifts his head and looksup questioningly at the hunters.)

SID: Best cover of the day, too. All those deserted farms and old apple orchards. That's why I'd been saving it for last. {He shakeshis head.) And then they had to run away and spoil it.

COREY (sadly): It takes a lot of patience, handling a dog. I wish I knew what went on in Cider's mind sometimes.

SID: Look at Bucky now, lying there so innocent and all, looking at me. Did you ever see anybody look at you like that? I wonder what he's thinking. ...

(Cider yawns, stretches, and sits up. He speaks to Bucky in thesame tone of voice the hunters use. The only difference is thatwhen the dogs are speaking you can hear all the other sounds thatpeople never hear: the silent pad offurred feet, the beat of unseenwings overhead, the thin shrill of night insects too high for thehuman ear.)

CIDER (to Bucky): Brother, am I hungry! I could eat a horse.

BUCKY (rolling over onto his back and exposing his damp bellyto the heat): That's what you'll get, too. I saw the boss put a package of horsemeat in the icebox this morning.

CIDER: I wish they'd quit talking and start supper. (Hopefully.) Look, my old man's getting up now.

BUCKY: He's just going over to pour himself another drink. I don't like to mention it, Cider, but isn't he hitting it up pretty hard lately? He seemed to be panting quite a bit coming up that last hill.

CIDER {quickly)-. Matter of fact, I never thought your old man would make the first hour this morning, coming through those alders.

BUCKY (indignantly): I noticed your old man had to sit down on a stump a couple of times to get his wind.

CIDER (bristling): He was just waiting for your old man to catch up with him . ...

(Both dogs are sitting up now, glaring at each other and making rumbling noises in their throats. The hunters look at them insurprise.)

COREY (to Cider): Charge, Cider! What's the matter with you?

SID (to Bucky): You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Bucky. Your own brother!

COREY: I guess they must be tired, after that long tour they took. It's still a mystery to me what got into them today.

SID: It's funny how they'll act. Sometimes they won't do anything right. Like for instance that cover we worked this morning on the Wilmot Road; usually there's a lot of birds in there, but Bucky wouldn't hunt it the way I wanted. I figured we'd work downhill and come out where we left the jeep, but Bucky kept circling around and getting out in front. I couldn't keep him in.

COREY: Cider did the same thing. Ran right down through the middle of it, without so much as casting either side. Wouldn't pay any attention to me at all.

SID: Sometimes they seem to understand you, and other times they're - I don't know - stubborn.

COREY: If they could only talk. If we could just explain to them

(Bucky is curled in a tight knot with his head on his hind legs. Cider has discovered a cocklebur in the fur on his chest and istugging at it with his teeth.)

CIDER: YOU know, Buck, I was just wondering.

BUCKY {sleepily): What?

CIDER: DO you suppose they really have a sense of smell?

BUCKY: Who?

CIDER: People. (He spits out the bur.) Take my old man; sometimes I don't think he's got any nose at all.

BUCKY: My old man's the same way. All he uses his nose for is to keep his glasses on.

CIDER: Like for instance that cover we worked this morning; that place was simply loaded with birds. I never smelt anything like it. I got so excited I started shivering all over. There were five grouse running ahead of us under those apple trees—

BUCKY: Six. I smelt where another one had been over by the stone wall. It went out before we got to it.

CIDER: That's what I mean. If they had any sense of smell at all, they'd never have worked that cover the way they did. They'd have started us down at the bottom of the hill and worked us back up through it against the wind—

BUCKY: Instead of yelling at us and calling us back, and making us work downwind so we couldn't smell a grouse until we were right on it.

CIDER: And then they complain about the birds getting up way ahead.

BUCKY: If we could only tell them! If we could only make them understand. ...

(Sid sets down the pot of potatoes and fills his pipe. Coreysettles back deeper into his easy chair and sips his highball reflectively.)

COREY: Have you noticed how much wilder the birds are this year? They keep getting up way ahead.

SID: It seems to me they fly faster these days, too. I was reading a study the other day; it said their speed is in ratio to the increased hunting pressure. I think that's what it said.

COREY: That must be it. Our timing hasn't kept up with the pressure curve.

SID: Or maybe it has something to do with atmospheric conditions. That might be the explanation.

COREY: There must be some reason why we didn't get any birds. Maybe the dogs were a little off today. I had a grouse this morning that got up out of some juniper where Cider was pointing, an easy going-away shot. I know I was right on it with both barrels, but Cider couldn't seem to find it. I don't know what was wrong with him.

SID: It's funny how a dog will refuse to hunt dead. I had the same thing happen with a woodcock. It came up out of the alders and I nailed it right at the top of the spin, a perfect shot, but do you think Bucky could locate it? Never even smelt where it fell. I hate to lose a dead bird like that....

(Corey and Sid shake their heads sadly. Cider discoversanother bur in his fur, yanks it out, and spits it on the floor.)

CIDER (to Bucky): Maybe they can't smell, but they make up for it in other ways.

BUCKY (trying to sleep): What ways?

CIDER: Well, they can do things we can't do. For instance, they can shoot.

BUCKY: Who says they can shoot? I suppose that grouse that got up out of the juniper in front of your old man this morning - an easy going-away shot if I ever saw one - I suppose you call that shooting. Missed it with both barrels.

CIDER (reacting): I wouldn't say your old man was exactly hot on that woodcock you were pointing in the alders. I had to laugh - making you hunt dead, and I could still see it flying. He never touched a feather.

BUCKY (bristling): Listen, bub, my old man could shoot rings around your old man—

CIDER (growling): My old man could wipe your old man's eye— (Both dogs have risen and are facing each other stiff-legged,the hackles standing up on their shoulders.)

COREY and SID (simultaneously): Cider! Bucky! SHUT UP!

COREY (frowning): What's got into those two dogs tonight?

SID: They're restless. Maybe they want to go out. (He opens thedoor. Both dogs exit hurriedly.)

SID (continuing): While I'm up I might as well get supper started.

COREY (without moving): Sure I can't give you a hand with those steaks, Cousin Sid?

SID: It's okay, Cousin Corey. No trouble at all. Just mix yourself another drink and relax.

COREY (sweetening his highball): Come to think of it, you know, it must be hard on a dog, not understanding what people are saying. Take posted land, for instance. How can you explain to a dog that you can't hunt in a certain field where you know there are birds, because a printed sign says you mustn't? I guess it's pretty confusing at times.

SID: Or closed seasons. How can a dog understand why we suddenly start shooting on the first of October, and suddenly stop again on the first of December?

COREY: If we could only tell them a few things, think how much easier it would be.

SID: Or would it?

COREY: HOW do you mean?

SID: Did you ever stop to think what they might tell us? The birds we put up wild, the shots we miss. {He lowers his voice.) Take that woodcock this morning, for instance. If Bucky could talk, I might find out I never hit it at all.

COREY {sheepishly): Now you mention it, I might have missed that grouse.

(Outside, in the moonlight, the two dogs are completing theirevening rounds.)

BUCKY (to Cider): Those two farm collies have been around here again this afternoon.

CIDER; I'll check behind the woodshed. (Sniffing.) Two squirrels, some stinkbirds, a rabbit or something, and a skunk.

BUCKY: Listen, the woodcock are moving. I heard one go over.

CIDER (excitedly): Wait till I tell the old man!

BUCKY: HOW are you going to tell him? You can't make him understand you.

CIDER: That's right. I forgot. (He writes his name dejectedly onthe corner of the woodpile, under Bucky's.) It's too bad we can't tell them a few things, isn't it?

BUCKY: Such as?

CIDER: Well, this afternoon, for instance. That last cover we hunted. There we were, locked up tight on those four birds, standing shoulder to shoulder. Not a tinkle from our bells. You had a pair in front of you and I had a pair, and they were really sitting for us. I can see them now, looking back at us and scolding a little and running off a few steps and then freezing again. The drool was running right down my jaws.

BUCKY: I know. I bet we held those birds for half an hour. And all the time I could hear your old man and mine, yelling their heads off and blowing their whistles and calling us. They walked within a hundred yards of us, but they never saw us. What a shot it would have been!

CIDER: That's what I mean. If we could have told them they'd have had a perfect chance for a double apiece.

BUCKY: Did you ever think, though - suppose we could tell them? Suppose every time they went out everything was perfect. What would happen then? They'd get their limit the first hour, and the hunt would be over. It would be too perfect. It wouldn't be fun anymore.

COREY and SID (their voices calling offstage): Come, Cider! Here, Bucky, Bucky!

CIDER (to Bucky): They're calling us. Maybe it's supper.

BUCKY (moodily): Horsemeat.

CIDER: That's one thing I wish we could tell them. I wish we could make them understand about horsemeat.

(Corey holds open the door and the two dogs enter, waggingtheir tails expectantly. The room smells of fresh-broiled steakand melted butter and coffee perking on the stove.)

SID: (abruptly): Darn! I forgot to take their horsemeat out to thaw.

COREY (after a moment's hesitation): You know, Sid, there's actually more steak here than I can eat.

SID: It's pretty big portion for me,'too.

COREY: I mean, they've been working hard and all, and I was just thinking. ...

SID (dividing his steak): I was just thinking the same thing.

(Bucky gulps down half of Sid's steak, and grins at Cider.)

BUCKY (to Cider): What was it we wanted to tell them just now?

(Cider swallows half of Corey's steak, and grins back.)

CIDER {to Bucky): I guess we understand each other well enough.

(The two dogs crawl up into the easy chairs and settlethemselves comfortably. Corey and Sid hesitate in front of thechairs, look at each other and shrug. They sit on the floor besidethe dogs.)