RECREATION. 
Volume XX, 
APRIL, 1904 
Number 4. 
G. 0. SHIELDS (COQUINA), Editor and Manager 
SOME ADVENTURES OF MINNIE MUSTELLE, THE MINK. 
H. 
Now, my dear children, you have 
reached an age when you will soon 
have to go forth into the world to earn 
your own livings, and I naturally wish 
to prepare you for the struggle for ex- 
istence in every way I can. Most of 
your knowledge must be gained by 
personal experience, a costly school, 
sometimes bitter, yet often most pleas- 
ant; but it may be that from some of 
the events which have befallen me you 
will obtain ideas that in the future may 
be of benefit to you. 
You must know that I, Minnie Mus- 
telle, was once like you, my dears, a 
helpless, woolly youngster, weak and 
unsteady on my limbs, and as unso- 
phisticated as you now are. As | be- 
came older and stronger my mother 
took me out each night, together with 
my brothers and sisters, and taught me 
secrets of the chase, as I shall soon 
teach you. Finally I became so skilled 
and had such confidence in my own 
ability that I severed family ties and 
roamed into strange territory, contin- 
ually searching for a more favorable 
hunting ground and never finding one 
that was entirely satisfactory. 
During one of these pilgrimages I 
first saw your father, whom you have 
never seen, but whose name I bear. He 
was born and raised North of the Can- 
ada line, as you might gather from the 
manner in which he spells his family 
name, and it was up in that direction 
he and I first met. I never shall 
forget how handsome, lithe and strong 
he was when I first saw him. I had 
caught glimpses before of others of 
my kind, yet he was a revelation to me 
B. BROWN. 
of the perfect development of the race, 
and I felt assured he was the most 
magnificent individual in all minkdom. 
Strive as I might, though the truth is 
I did not try, I could but fall heeis 
over head in love with him. 
You will understand when you are 
older that even although IJ at once ad- 
mitted this state of affairs to myself, 
it is not seemly to show too soon how 
you bestow your affections, lest the re- 
cipient fail to appraise them at their 
true value and t» esteem them as high- 
ly as he otherwise would. Therefore, 
I was coy and shy, yet his ardent ad- 
vances and impetuous wooing none 
could long withstand, and we soon 
_were happily wedded. 
255 
In time I learned that his disposition 
was far from perfect. When I warned 
him of your near arrival he expressed 
himself in such violent terms and made 
such dire threats that it seemed only 
prudent to seek this cosy nook and ar- 
range to live the life of a grass widow 
until such time as you were able to 
shift for yourselves, To accomplish 
this I selected a night when the rain 
was falling swiftly enough to wash 
away all traces of my footsteps, de- 
serted your father, came to this shel- 
tered place and prepared the comforta- 
ble little home you have always known. 
The roof is a great boulder piled on 
others of its kind; and but a few feet 
from our low and narrow door flows 
Black brook, which, when you ap- 
proach the opening, you can hear tum- 
bling merrily over the rocks on its way 
to Dead river. 
This is an exceptionally easy country 
