ar when
woodcock were so plenty at places we didn't visit. The most fun was at a
ditch which was about a foot wider than any of us could jump. Root gave
his gun to McDonald and plunged in. Then McDonald threw a gun to Root. It
hit him on the thumb-nail and dropped in the ditch out of sight. Mc.
thought it was Root's gun, and he apologized to Root for throwing it so
carelessly. Root supposed it was Mc.'s gun, and he apologized for not
catching it. We never saw men more polite in the world. Mc. started to
jump across, when a dog got between his legs, and both went in up to their
knees. You never can jump as well with a dog tangled up amongst your legs.
The dog looked at Jennings as though he wanted to swear. We waded through
the ditch and only got two feet wet. The rest of them had more than that
wet.

But about the woodcock. This is, kind reader, purely a woodcock story, and
more or less must be said about the dollar bird. But this is neither here
nor there. It was over in the Root river bottoms. Finally we got on the
woodcock ground and went to work. Talk about mosquitoes! There was no end
to them. We ought not to say that, either, because there are spots on our
person that just fit the end of a mosquito. There was an end to them. If
you never saw mosquitoes in convention, you want to go over there. And
right here we will give a recipe for keeping mosquitoes from biting. You
take some cedar oil and put on your coat collar, if you are a man, and if
you are a woman put it on that gingerbread work around your neck, and a
mosquito will come up and sing to you and get all ready to take toll, when
she will smell that oil. She is the sickest mosquito you ever saw. She
turns over on her back and sends her husband for the nearest doctor. We
had a bottle of cedar oil, and if Jennings hadn't left it hanging up in
Hogan's store in his coat, we should have made those mosquitoes sick. As
it was they did it to us. There isn't a spot on us as big as a billiard
table but what you can find artesian wells made by mosquitoes.

Woodcock sell higher in the market than any other bird. Lots of people
that never saw them eat snakes, eat them. When they get up to fly they
talk Bohemian, and get behind a bush. You shoot right into the bush, and
if you kill one you think you are a good shot. Talk about getting tired.
You walk around in the woods several miles, with mosquitoes getting
acquainted with you, and all the time your nerves strung up in