ON THE 'POSSUM'S TRAIL 91 



Yes, there inside that gourd was Pinky, sound 

 asleep, as usual. He wanted to be a tame 'pos- 

 sum, and he was going to be a tame 'possum, or 

 know the reason why. 



The notion had brought him back again. How 

 he ever managed to squeeze through the opening 

 of the gourd, I don't know; but there he was 

 sweetly sleeping. 



He no longer possessed the notion; the notion 

 possessed him. And what happened finally? A 

 sad thing, of course. A creature with such a head 

 on his shoulders could not come to a fine and 

 happy end. 



I took Pinky back to the woods the third time, 

 and the third time he returned, but blundered into 

 a neighbor's yard, and and a little later he was 

 drawn up in a bucket of water from the bottom 

 of that neighbor's well, still asleep, only they 

 could not wake him up poor little Pinky ! 



Would Pinky ever have had wit enough, I 

 wonder, to choose the fence-rail road and the 

 chimney-top entrance? Yet the old fellow of the 

 corn-shock that .Uncle Jethro had for Thanksgiv- 

 ing is not the only 'possum I have known to take 

 a roundabout way home for the sake of hiding his 

 trail. One autumn I was fooled over and over, 



