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 



