AT HOME 349 



dener, had been complaining much about the loss of his 

 chickens and did not know whether the malefactor was 

 a coon or a mink. Accordingly, I picked up a rifle and 

 trotted down to the pond holding it in one hand, while 

 the little boy trotted after me, affectionately clasping the 

 butt. Sure enough, in a big blasted chestnut close to 

 the pond was the coon, asleep in a shallow hollow of 

 the trunk, some forty feet from the ground. It was a 

 very exposed place for a coon to lie during the daytime, 

 but this was a bold fellow and seemed entirely undis- 

 turbed by our voices. He was altogether too near the 

 house, or rather the chicken-coops, to be permitted to 

 stay where he was especially as but a short time before 

 I had, with mistaken soft-heartedness, spared a possum 

 I found on the place and accordingly I raised my rifle; 

 then I remembered for the first time that the rear sight 

 was off, as I had taken it out for some reason; and in 

 consequence I underwent the humiliation of firing two 

 or three shots in vain before I got the coon. As he 

 fell out of the tree the little boy pounced gleefully on 

 him; fortunately he was dead, and we walked back to 

 the house in triumph, each holding a hind leg of the 

 quarry. 



The possum spoken of above was found in a dogwood 

 tree not more than eighty yards from the house, one after- 

 noon when we were returning from a walk in the woods. 

 As something had been killing the hens, I felt that it was 

 at least under suspicion and that I ought to kill it, but 

 a possum is such an absurd creature that I could not 

 resist playing with it for some time; after that I felt that 



