turned to the house. Of course I didn’t say a word about poor old 
Tom and as that dead cat told no tales my mother didn’t learn of it 
until I was 22 years old, when I chose to tell her. Of course, she 
forgave me then, as all good mothers do. 
Steel traps, in those days, were a rare and costly article, especially 
for a boy. However, I had sold enough furs which 1 had caught my¬ 
self to buy a dozen single spring traps. In those days the manufac¬ 
turers did not attach chains to the traps; they left that for the trapper 
to do, but small chains were not available and I had no money to get 
the blacksmith to make me some, so I used a small rope. I rigged all 
my traps with ropes, instead of chains, which took the greater part 
of my time through the day. About twilight I had finished the last 
trap and of course was anxious to get them out. 
I had noticed a whippoorwill that would light, each night, about 
dusk on my mother’s ash hopper. He would hop around joyously and 
cry, “Whippoorwill,” “Whip-poor-will,” “Whip-poor-will.” 
This night my traps were new and I had to try them so I dug 
out a hole in the ashes where he would light, set and covered the 
trap and left. 
The next morning bright and early I went out to my trap and 
there, as I had expected, was the whippoorwill. He had lit on the 
trigger of the'trap and it had caught him around the body; his wings 
were pointing skyward, a pathetic figure, but I was so overjoyed at 
having caught the first thing I had set my new steel traps for that I 
didn’t stop to think of that. When I showed it to mother I remem¬ 
ber she said, “Yes, there will be no keeping you in school after this, 
I suppose.” 
The first opportunity I had I was out to set my traps. I set one 
for otter, some for coon and some for mink. After I had visited my 
traps several times and caught nothing I began to see that there was 
something to learn about catching animals in steel traps, so I began 
to question the old trappers that came to father’s still to have their 
jugs filled. They gave me many pointers that helped me about how 
and where to set traps for the different animals. I began to see that 
the first sets I had made were all wrong, so I reset them. 
Two or three days elapsed before I again could visit my traps 
and I found, when 1 did finally go, that I had caught the otter but 
he had broken the small rope which fastened the trap. This set was 
made on a log where a large tree had fallen into Duck River. The 
otter, in trying to release himself, made the log pretty wet and as it 
had frozen in the night the log was now a glare of ice. In the hope 
that the otter had fastened himself to the log in some way in his 
effort to free himself of the trap, I ventured out to the end of the log 
to look for him, only to find that he had made a complete getaway. 
Just as I was ready to give up the search and turning on the log 
started for shore, my foot slipped and I tumbled, head and ears, into 
Duck River. The edge of the river was frozen over with ice and I 
had quite a time getting.out; however. I broke the ice with my hands 
and feet and finally managed to reach land. I made a bee line for 
home, running as fast as I could and in a few minutes my clothes 
— 8 
