AFoxyDoggerel

A Foxy Doggerel
By Herbert Beck

It’s a mellow winter morning
With the upland moist and soft,
While the smoke from woodstove chimneys
Rises lazily aloft.
It’s a morning out of fifty
And it’s pretty safe to say
That from Coleraine to Speedwell
Every hound will run to-day.

Forge Hill was scarcely dawnlit
When the Nesingers went out,
And soon old Punch and Rattler
Were whimpering about;
And now they’ve struck a night trail
In behind the Walnut Spring;
And hark! He’s off! The pack cuts loose
To make the Hirschthal ring.

There’s click of hoof in the Kettle path,
It’s Holtzhouse on his black,
And Eckert riding through the brush
To watch their working pack.
For Nettie’s got one started
With Dash, Seed Keener’s hound,
And Rowdy, Fly, Rose, Range and Nell
Make White Oak Hill resound.

A sprightly redbird flashes up
To balance on a birch;
A gray squirrel scurries nervously
And flattens on his perch.
There’s a patter in the withered leaves –
The fox! It’s old White Tail!
He stops to listen, flirts his brush,
And streaks it up the vale.

Down about Mt. Vernon wood
There is a merry dash
With Henry Skiles, and wiry son
On white-faced Sandy Flash.*
Their fox has little time to fool
Before that speedy drive.
He’ll have to hunt his hole to-day
To finish up alive.

In Sadsbury, by the Chester line,
The run was short and quick;
And music of the chase is changed
To sound of shovel’s click;
For Seldomridge is working hard –
His licking dogs about
And steaming horse tied by the fence –
To dig the redskin out.

What makes the winter crows dart down
There, above the old Bone Mill?
Yes! Look again! You see his brush?
It surely is Wild Bill.
And here they come, full forty strong
Like a pack in Leicestershire,
With Johnny Raub and Norman Neff
A-gallop in the rear.

And over by the Nickle Mine
There’s music in the air,
For Johnny Kurtz has got one going
With the gray-haired veteran Bair.
Their horses pounding up the road,
All mud from nose to hocks,
Bring the loafers from the Georgetown store
To try to see the fox.

Down East Earl way there’s been a loss
Although the going was fine,
And hounds are nosing everywhere
To straighten out the line.
The “byes” are guessing what went wrong;
Doc think he went to earth.
While Charley Eaby takes a chew
And tightens up his girth.

On sunny slope of old Pinch Hill
Two saddle horses stand,
With thirty long-ears lying ’round –
None finer in the land.
They’re building in a trap up there
To try to get this fox.
Mann Keener does the setting up
While Zeamer fetches rocks.

And Slotey’s pack is working
Somewhere down near Martindale;
And Garrett’s got one running
In the Conewago vale.
Old Andy Hershey heaves a sigh
This perfect hunting day,
And cups a hand against his ear
To catch a distant bay.

It’s a mellow winter morning
And the upland’s moist and soft
While the smoke from woodstove chimneys
Rises lazily aloft.
The Garden Spot’s all music
From Wakefield up to Clay,
From Donegal to Churchtown
Every foxhound’s out today.

*The champion running horse of Lancaster County, owned by Mr.
Brubaker (1908-12). Sandy Flash was stabled at Mt. Vernon, and
the end of his breezy career he was buried in the Lancaster Fair
Grounds.

A Foxy Doggerel evokes many childhood memories for Leo Erb. The poem mentions Henry Skiles and
his ‘wiry son on white faced Sandy Flash’. The ‘wiry son’ is Demont Skiles. Demont grew up to become a
special person in Leo’s life. Leo, born in 1924, went to live with Demont at the age on nine and stayed with
him until he joined the army in his late teens.

Leo recalls many great hunts with Demont in the Gap, Smyrna, Green Tree and the Nickel Mines area and
as far south as the Forge Hills outside Christiana. He recalls that Herbert Beck, the author of A Foxy
Doggerel, often hunted with Demont Skile Hounds.

Leo and Flora were married and moved to their present home in Georgetown in 1944. Leo started his own
pack of Penn Marydels in the early 1960’s and upon Demont’s death in the late 60’s he inherited Demont’s
hounds.

Since the 1960’s Leo and his pack have hunted the same area that Demont hunted plus the Susquehanna
River Hills. He, along with his ‘byes’, Sam Ankrum, Charlie McCrabb, Jake Ross, Andy Ford and Vic Fite
can relate many stories of fox hunting in and around the River Hills.