THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS 97 



but a certain aloofness of soul also, for the deeper 

 meaning and poetry of nature. One needs to spend 

 a vacation, at least, in the wilderness and solitary 

 place, where no other human being has ever come, 

 and there, where the animals know man only as a 

 brother, go to the school of the woods and study 

 the wild folk, one by one, until he discovers them 

 personally, temperamentally, all their likes and 

 dislikes, their little whimseys, freaks, and fancies 

 all of this, there, far removed from the canker- 

 ing cares of hens and chickens, for the sake of 

 the right attitude toward nature. 



My nearest neighbor had never been to the 

 wilderness. He lacked imagination, too, and a 

 ready pen. Yet he promised not to kill my three 

 skunks in the stump; a rather doubtful pledge, 

 perhaps, but at least a beginning toward the new 

 earth I hoped to see. 



Now it was perfectly well known to me that 

 skunks will eat chickens if they have to. But I 

 had had chickens a few hens and had never 

 been bothered by skunks. I kept my hens shut 

 up, of course, in a pen the only place for a hen 

 outside of a pie. I knew, too, that skunks like 

 honey, that they had even tampered with my 



