The Skunk 45 
indistinct, but as she approached it moved slightly, 
and she distinguished a wood-pussy. She screamed, 
dropped her pan and ran into the shop exclaiming, 
“A skunk! a skunk in the basement!” 
The smith, a very self-possessed man, dropped the 
foot of the horse he was shoeing, and looking at his 
excited wife said, “Well, Hannah, what of it?” 
The answer came promptly, “If you want any 
potatoes for dinner, you'll have to get them yourself!” 
Apparently without concern for his personal safety, 
or for the danger of defiling the sweet June air, he 
walked into the basement, quietly lifted the skunk 
by the tail and brought him forth, and as he threw 
him over the fence in the rear of the garden remarked, 
“I never was afraid of skunks, and they do an awful 
lot of good.” 
