“They come out to feed at first light and at sundown,” he said. “That’s when you look. Middle of the day, you can walk right over them. First light is your best hour. The dew’s on the grass and they come out to the edge of the timber to eat clover.”
Then he said, “I have a carrier and a live trap you can borrow. Two of them. Drop-door traps. You bait them with apple and a little lettuce and set them where the brush meets the grass.”
He drove over to my house that same evening, before dark, in a pickup older than me. He was a small man in bib overalls, maybe eighty, and he got out slow and carried those traps to my porch one at a time.
Della came out. He looked at her and asked, “These are Holland Lops?”
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“Yes sir,” she said.
“Which ones did you get back?”
She told him. Clover and Pepper. She told him their weights and their ages and which one had better crown on its head. He listened to every word like she was a grown judge.
When she was done, he said, “You’ll get more. You’re doing it right.”
The next morning we were back at the edge of the timber at a quarter after five.
The sun was just coming up over the bean field, all pink and gold, and the dew was so heavy on the grass that our jeans were soaked to the knee in ten steps. It was cool for the only time all day. The birds were loud.
Huck was already there. He had ridden his bike over in the half light with his nets. Nadine came a little later with a thermos of coffee for me and chocolate milk for the kids.
We set Ivo’s traps where the brush met the yard, one behind the garage and one down by the creek where the clover was thick. Della cut an apple into eighths with her pocketknife and laid it inside with a leaf of romaine.
Then we spread out along the edge of the trees, and we waited, and we watched.
At about twenty to six, Huck lifted one finger and pointed.
Out at the edge of the mowed grass, fifty yards down, there was a little gray shape sitting in the clover with her ears hanging down, eating. It was Smoke. It was Della’s best doe, the one she had planned to show as her senior, the one that was going to win if anything was.
Della did not run. She had learned something in one day. She walked along the edge of the timber, slow, in the wet grass, shaking the pellet can very softly, and when she was about fifteen feet away, she knelt down.
Smoke looked up at her. Then Smoke hopped two times toward the sound of the can and stopped.
Della held out her hand.
I heard her say, so quiet I almost could not hear it, “Hey, girl. Hey. It’s just me.”
And that rabbit hopped right into her hands.
That was three.
The next two took four more mornings and three more afternoons.
On Friday, the drop-door trap behind the garage had a young tan buck in it named Biscuit, who had gotten so hungry he went right in after the apple. He was thin and had a scratch on his nose, but he was fine. Della carried the whole trap across the yard to my car with him in it and would not let anybody else touch it.