Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/44

single day's hunt and as the spoils of two gunners only, to bring home four deer and a wild turkey? Ye gastronomes! who relish the proceeds of a hunt better than its toils and perils—a glance at that larder, if you please! Look at that fine bird, so carefully hung up by the neck; his spurs are an inch and a half in length, his beard eight inches; what an ample chest! what glossy plumage!—his weight is twenty-five pounds! And see that brave array of haunches! that is a buck of two years,—juicy, tender, but not fat,—capital for steaks! But your eye finds something yet more attractive—the saddle of a four-year-old doe, kidney covered, as you see; a morsel more savoury smokes not upon a monarch's board. How pleasant to eat! Shall I say it?—how much pleasanter to give away! Ah, how such things do win their way to hearts—men's and women's too! My young sporting friends, a word in your ear: the worst use you can make of your game is to eat it yourselves.