Friday, October 10, 2008

The Voice of Bugle Ann By MacKinlay Kantor


Bugle Ann was a Missouri fox hound bred and raised by Spring Davis. Her voice was one that sent chills up the spine of the men who would sit by the fire in the night and listen to the hounds chase a fox through Chilly Branch Hollow, high and round and with a brassy resonance, a sound like a bugle. This was not English style fox hunting with horses and bright jackets and a dead fox at the end of the chase; here, the fox went to his refuge and lived to be chased the next day.

Spring Davis loved his dogs and the other men at the fire would tease him for his special affection for Bugle Ann. Spring carried an old bugle and called his dog in from the hunt with two long notes.

One night, the men learned that an old farm had been sold and the new owner, known to be a mean man, was going to fence the property and raise sheep. The concerned hunters located and moved some of the foxes so they would not run near the fences but one night as the hunters listened to their dogs, they sensed and heard trouble. A fox had run through the new owner’s fence.
Some of the dogs ran through but a couple got hurt in the wire. Bugle Ann did not come in to her call.

The author wrote this beautiful and touching story in 1935. They made a movie based on the novel and I was just a small boy when I saw it. I remember that I thought it was very sad. I found this short novel, only 128 pages, at my library this week and read it for the first time; read it if you can find it.

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