"I'm going to stay out and hunt for as long as I want to," Bud said loftily. "I'll hunt the whole season if I feel like it."
"I wish I could," Get said. "School, it's hard for me. But if I don't go, I fall behind, and if I fall behind . . ." He shrugged eloquently.
Bud thought of Mr. Thorne's saying that he thought it would be a very important part of Bud's education to hunt the black buck, but he still had no idea what Mr. Thorne really meant. There were a lot of things he did not understand, Bud decided as the bus stopped in front of the Bennetts' driveway.
"Good luck," he said to Get to make up for having snapped at him.
Bud left the bus and made his way through the eight inches of fluffy snow that blanketed the driveway. The snow was loose and easy to plow through. But still it would either keep the more timid hunters out of the woods entirely or make them concentrate in the fringe areas so that there would be fewer hunters in the deep woods.
Shep came to meet him as Bud stomped the snow from his overshoes and took them off on the porch, and for a moment Bud wished he could change places with Shep, who wasn't allowed to go out into the deer woods during the season. Then he opened the door and went into the kitchen.
A heavenly smell from the loaves of freshly baked bread that Gram was tumbling out of baking pans filled every corner of the kitchen and overflowed into the nearby rooms. Gramps sat at the table fussing with some minor adjustment of his deer rifle.
"Good. Tomorrow we get on his tail! Give us four days together, just four days, and you and me'll tag that black buck."
Gram said, "Oh, Delbert. You'd think that buck was more important than the President of the United States."
"Right now, and as far as I'm concerned, he is, Mother. 'Sides, who'd want the President's head hanging on his setting-room wall?"
Gram appealed to Bud. "That's all he's been talking about, just that black buck. And if he's been over his rifle once today, he's been over it a hundred times."
"Got to have it right, Mother," Gramps said. "We'll get one chance and no more. If we miss when the chance comes, we'll have only ourselves to blame."
"After all this fuss and bother you'd just better get him," Gram said dryly. "There'll be no living with you the rest of the winter if you don't. I'd give you a slice of butter bread, Allan, except that it's still too hot."