question I asked myself the first night I spent in 

 Maine. I had occasion to go down the road 

 that night, and as my hostess handed me the 

 lantern she said warningly, "Look out for the 

 wood pussies on the way." From what I was 

 able to put together that night I was sure that 

 "wood-pussy " was a very pretty down-east name 

 for what, in New Jersey, I had always called a 

 skunk. 



I have had about a dozen unsought meetings 

 with this greatly dreaded, seldom-named, but 

 much-talked-of creature. Most of them are 

 moonlight scenes pictures of dimly lighted, 

 shadow-flecked paths, with a something larger 

 than a cat in them, standing stock-still or moving 

 leisurely toward me, silvered now with pale light, 

 now uncertain and monstrous where the shadows 

 lie deepest. With these memories always come 

 certain strange sensations of scalp -risings, chill 

 feelings of danger, of wild adventure, and of hair- 

 breadth escape. 



I have never met a skunk at night that did 



not demand (and receive) the whole path, even 



when that path was the State highway. Dispute 



the authority of a skunk? No more than I 



[282] 



