THE PECULIAR 



he was grown, unlike any other wild animal I had 

 ever tamed, he would not depart from these domes- 

 ticated ways, but insisted upon coming back home 

 every time I took him away to the woods. Of 

 course he was only a few months old when I tried 

 to turn him loose in the woods, and that may account 

 for his returning and squeezing through the open- 

 ing of the pump-box trough into the kitchen and 

 going fast asleep on the cushion of the settee ; as it 

 may also account for his getting into a neighbor's 

 yard by mistake on his way back one night and 

 drowning in the well. 



You have read of 'possum hunts ; and they are 

 peculiar, too, as naturally they must needs be. For 

 you hunt 'possums with rabbit hounds, and shoot 

 them with a meal-sack shoot them into a meal- 

 sack would be more exact. And you hunt by moon- 

 light if you really love 'possum. 



We used to start out just as the moon, climbing over 

 the woods, fell soft across the bare fields. The old 

 dog would be some distance ahead, her nose to the 

 ground, sometimes picking up a trail in the first corn- 

 field, or again not until we reached the woods, or 

 again leading us for miles along the creek meadows 

 among the scattered persimmon trees, before strik- 

 ing a fresh scent. 



Wherever the trail started it usually led away for 

 the woods, for some hollow stump or tree, where the 

 'possum made his nest. Once in a while I have over- 



