Willie Goode enjoyed a special status on Tinkling Creek Plantation. His present position, at age seventy-five, was as scout for the dog handler on quail hunts. In his youth he had scouted for the Plantation’s field trial handler when the Plantation’s then owner, Creedmore Burns, sponsored a string on the all-age circuit. That had been a glorious time, right after World War Two, when Burns was among the Nation’s, indeed the world’s, wealthiest men, made so by his companies’ contributions to the war effort.
In those days long past, Tinkling Creek’s field trial dogs were consistent winners on the circuit. Then Creedmore Burns died suddenly on opening day 1949 of a heart attack just after shooting a double on the Plantation’s second hunting course, the way he had always hoped he might die (he had long known of his heart murmur). The next and subsequent Burns owners had no interest in field trials (beyond the Georgia-Florida Field Trial Club’s Owner’s Trial, held every President’s Day since 1916). But Willie Goode’s fame as a scout lived on in memory and then legend, and his role as teacher of shooting to adolescent family members further endeared him to all who claimed kinship by affinity or consanguinity to Creedmore Burns.
But the years had taken their inevitable toll. Willie’s eyesight had faded, making finding dogs on point impossible for him. What role might he play now? He did not want to retire.
The answer came from the owner’s wife, the owner being Creedmore’s grandson.
“Let Willie be hunting wagon driver. The mules know the courses, will find their own way. The retrievers, seated beside Willie, will watch for downed birds. Willie can see enough, and as conversationalist with the guns and non-shooting passengers he cannot be beat,” Millie Creedmore had said. And she proved to be correct.