A Wicked Brother to the Pig

By: Martha McCulloch Williams

Taken From: The Outing Magazine

  

   Sport has an extra relish when it has a tang of vengeance underneath, and Joe had a private grudge against the whole race of possums - no wonder, therefore, that he liked a possum hunt even more than a bird hunt. The sly gray- coats had not only robbed him, but fooled him ever and ever so long. It happened in this wise. Joe had a small hen-house set up in the orchard, quite apart from his mother's. Only the spring before a possum had plundered it, sucking eggs without number, and eating many young chicks. But there seemed no way to catch him- traps he stepped over, or around, poisoned eggs he disdained. The dogs told of his presence, but somehow always lost his trail. So Joe sat up to watch for him, gun in hand, and waited so late that he fell asleep, until a great squawking and fluttering among the hens with young broods waked him. He saw a gray, furry thing slide away, leap upon the fence, follow it to the gate, spring thence into a black walnut tree growing beside it, run along the walnut boughs until they lapped those of an oak above the wood pile, scutter through the oak, and down its trunk, and at last disappear under the logs. When the posse got him out at dawn they found the whole place full of shells and feathers and bones. The sly rascal had harbored there, right under the noses of everybody, choosing a route back and forth which the wisest dog could not follow.

  It was early spring, so Joe knew the possum's mate had whipped him away from the nest. She had just got her young in her pouches, and needed all the room her- self. Like the mother hawk, she is bigger than her mate, and a better fighter. She will fight almost anything for her young, until they are big enough to run and climb. For six weeks after they are born she keeps them snug in the pouches underneath her. When she sits up you see their funny little heads each side, sticking out of the slit between the pouches, or suck- ling, very much as pigs suck. After the first fortnight they do not stay constantly in the pouches. Their eyes open and they creep out to play clumsily, but scurry back at her first warning grunt. The play- spells outside grow longer and longer, but still the young possums seek their accustomed shelter until they grow too big to get into it. After that Sis Possum carries them another way, all huddled on her back, with their tails clinging round her tail, which she holds up for the purpose over and parallel to her backbone. Thus she runs out of the nest with them, or blunders about the woods. The nest is in either a hollow tree, or log, or stump, or a dry cranny in the bluff, or is scratched out beneath the floor of a low-set outbuilding. It is lined with leaves and grass, and is deserted after one season.

  Sis Possum likes best to fight with a tree or a stone at her back, but if she must do it on open ground, she half crouches over her young family, and strikes out with teeth and forefeet. Her teeth are almost tusks. That is another point of likeness to her cousins, the pigs. Like them, also, she is carnivorous if need be - eating birds and their eggs, very young rabbits, besides such small deer as mice and grub- worms. To get at the grubs she turns over rotting logs with her sharp nose. She also roots, pig fashion, for sprouting acorns, and nips off mouthfuls of tender grass. Feeding thus in spring and summer the possum's flesh is coarse, rank, tough and string)'', for he is a gross and mighty feeder, yet withal an epicure ; eating many things and much of them if he must, eating the best things and still more of them, if he may. He divides the mulberry crop with the squirrels, but he does not care much for green corn.' Sweet apples tempt him to the orchard, and he has a nice taste in blackberries. But none of these compare in his mind with grapes and persimmons. The earliest of these ripen in September. By October possums are fairly edible, but it is not until November that they reach their prime.

  Possums are fat then - fat as they can waddle - and all their flesh is delicate and of melting richness. The skin under the gray white-tipped hair glows a lively pink, like the skin of a young white pig. A possum is never skinned for cooking. Instead, he is rolled in hot ashes, and scraped as a pig is scraped. Then he is either stuffed with sweet potatoes, and roasted whole, or baked with the potatoes in the pan all around. The cooking must be thorough - the skin crisp enough to crackle in the teeth. The taste of a young possum, properly fat, freshly caught, and dressed before he was fairly cold, is very much that of a glorified sucking pig.

  Before the roasting comes the catching, consequently the possum hunt. Black men are incomparably the best hunters - perhaps through the inherited aptitude of many generations. Nose makes the possum dog. He may be of any breed, or all, or none. A setter or pointer which develops the possum nose, is hard to beat, but it is a ruined dog thereafter for work after birds. The very best dogs for possum are mongrels of wholly indistinguishable antecedents. Some few have rough, wiry coats, hinting of terrier blood, others jaws of bulldog pattern, and still others ears and legs that bespeak a remote hound cross. A simple yellow cur may turn out an ideal possum dog - so may a fyce, especially a bench -legged fyce. But whatever the breed, the fact is indisputable - no litter, however big it may be, was ever known to hold more than one real possum dog. "Wrong" was proof enough of that, for although, when he and his brother "Right" were hunting together, you could scarcely distinguish the one from the other, Right had no brains whatever. He ran anything or nothing, just as the notion took him, would stand barking half a day beside a perfectly sound stump, trying to make the world share his belief that there was some wonderful beast inside or under it, or if he ran a real rabbit, fol- lowed it at an easy dilettante trot, his mouth open, and yawping once in every ten yards. A mole hill was quite another matter - he ran along it so fast, and barked so furiously, he sometimes stumbled over his own forelegs, and took a header that knocked the breath out of him. Not- withstanding, Slow Pete, his master, had faith to believe he would make a great dog, when he had time to come to himself. Since Right was rising two years old, Dan and Little Moses laughed at the prediction, and scoffed at the bare mention of taking Right possum hunting.

  They did not really heed any other dog than Wrong; but since a barking chorus is jollier of nights than a single cry, they tolerated, Daddy Jim's two dogs. Music and Damsel, who at least knew enough to follow Wrong's lead. Music was a cur of no degree. Damsel had a remote hound-cross; neither was much to look at, but both had a place in the hearts of their hunting countrymen. It was a near thing as to which of them was the better; but nobody ever thought of disputing that after Wrong, the incomparable, the pair were the best possum dogs in the county. All three knew their business to a nicety. They understood what was up, in fact, as soon as their masters began splitting wood for torches. It was odd to see them then crouch at the men's feet, looking up at them with pleading eyes, whining a little and beating the ground with their tails. Wrong had this much of real greatness - he never thought himself indispensable. Instead he begged as piteously to be taken, as the awkwardest and most unkempt puppy of the possum- dog brotherhood. Before hunting nights Little Moses always gave him extra feed at breakfast, with only bread and milk at noon, and a hunch of ash-cake for supper. He knew a dog must have strength to run well, also that he would never run his best nor trail his best with an overful stomach. Possum hunters have an assembly call the same as partridges. It is a keen, whooping halloo. Little Moses generally raised it, in signal to the rest to gather in the road before his cabin. Dan and Joe were commonly the first to answer it. Dan could outwhoop Little Moses if he tried - but when your hunting depends largely upon the loan of another fellow's dog, it is not the part of wisdom to halloo him down at the beginning. A possum dog is generally likewise a fine coon dog, so the dogs did not know until the hunters laid their course what sort of game they were expected to follow. Coons abide in the woods along the streams. They cannot live far away from fresh water, since they must first dip into it every morsel they eat. If the hunt headed for the creek, that meant coons as plain as daylight. If contrariwise, it went toward the old fields, and the strip of tangle, possum was the word. And then the dogs were glad - so glad that they leaped and fawned upon their masters, then set off running full tilt, and barking in little short happy yelps as they ran. Wrong's bark was his worst point. It was shrill, almost whining. Damsel had a bell note, Music a loud half- roaring voice, not the least bit musical, but dependably honest.

  Every experienced black possum hunter firmly believes luck is at its best under a growing moon. That is not strange, considering he also believes that life and death, and blight and growth, the turn of the seasons, wind, sunshine, and rain, all depend upon lunar influence. He explains that as the moon waxes or wanes, so does the scent of the wild creatures. Naturally a growing scent leaves a trail quickly found and easily followed. If there is a color of reason behind his belief, it is easy to understand why November hunts are so fruitful. The hunter's moon shines "then, red and fiery at the rising, later a shield or a sickle of burnished silver, swimming slow across a violet velvet sea. It rises earlier than any other moon of the year. The light of it makes bright the fields and woods when it is even a little way up the sky. But the thickets are densely dark. Torchlight is needed there on moonlight nights, as well as late or early when the moon does not shine. Still it is bad luck to start out by torchlight. After the hunt is a hundred yards away, the torches may be lit, it does not so much matter. Dan commonly lit his torch, even if there was a moon, when they came to the fence around the old field. If it had not been for the hedgerow you might have walked through the rotting rails anywhere. The old fields made part of the land that had been in chancery. It was all of twenty years since a plow had run in them. Still there were many acres clear of everything but sedge, yet thickets were plenty, and very tall, as were also persimmon trees. Grapevines overran the thickets, and not one persimmon tree in a dozen was un- fruitful. Persimmon trees are male and female, but luckily for Brer Possum and his congeners, the proportion of unfruitful staminate trees to fruitful pistillate ones, is less than one to twenty.

  Persimmon trees are, after a sort, sylvan immortelles. Nobody ever saw a dead one, any more than a dead mule. Cutting down and grubbing up does not destroy them. They sprout cheerfully from the tiniest tip of root, and keep on sprouting from year to year, defying even August cutting. As to seat the tree is nobly catholic, growing and bearing much fruit upon thin land, growing more, bearing still more fruit, upon rich. It spreads by seeds as well as by sprouts. In the sunny, open fields, which it loves passing well, it grows commonly in clumps, from five to twenty, though the trunks stand well apart. In the woods it grows singly, and curiously enough, ripens its fruit earlier than when growing in the open. There are very many sub-species of it, differentiated mainly by the several manners of fruit. Some trees ripen it early in September; others keep the acrid puckery tang until February. The early trees are often bare before frost, covering the ground underneath with their fruit, which is round, deeply flattened at either end, of a deep tawny yellow, and thickly covered with the richest blue bloom. The flowers, green and inconspicuous, come out in mid-May all along last year's twigs. Sometimes they are very many, sometimes very few. By their number you can judge the next fall's persimmon crop, since every one sets fruit. This early-ripe fruit is lusciously sweet and juicy. The pulp is near the color of a ripe pumpkin's flesh, but a thought more tawny. It lies close around the seeds, which are flat, satin-smooth and of a light brown, each firmly incased in a fleshy skin. A persimmon might indeed be described without libel as a rosette of these flat seeds bedded in pulp and covered. To the very last the seeds keep the puckery quality of the green fruit, so in eating it is the part of wisdom merely to suck the pulp. Late persimmons hang on all winter, and are thus a real god- send to the wild things in the time of deep snows. The trees grow most commonly on poor clay soil, lying high and dry, yet reach a fair size for their kind. Persimmon trees never grow big; one as much as two feet across at the butt is exceptional. The late trees bear lavishly, literally loading down their twigs with fruit, but the fruit is small, not half the size of the early globes, yet fuller of seed. It is also dry to mealiness, yet well worth eating when picked frozen from the tree. Betwixt the early sort and the late, there is a constant succession. All but the very latest cast their fruit as soon as it reaches full ripeness. Wild grapes are something the same way. They are divided roughly into summer grapes and winter ones, though the summer grapes do not ripen until October. Possums may be depended on to know and choose the best feeding ground. Hunting luck depends very much upon the hunters knowing the same thing. In the old field Joe and Dan had the lay of the land by heart. The big swale was full of grapes, summer and winter ones, not to name crab- apples and black haws and persimmons thick enough on the higher ground round about the swale always to furnish two or three trees, fully ripe. So they went straight lustily to the dogs: "Hi-yi! hi-yi! Hunt him up! Hunt him up, old dog!" The crying was spasmodic. There must be intervals of silence to catch a dog's possible opening on the trail. The trail might be struck in the unlikeliest place. Brer Possum comes and goes almost as crookedly as Brer Rabbit. But no matter how crooked a line may be, if you take a compass and keep drawing circles all over the surface it crosses, one circle is sure at least to fall slap to it, crossing open breadths of sedge, with the dogs running out in leaping circles upon either side. Wrong worked majestically alone. Music and Damsel kept together as though hunting in couple. They were excellent comrades, except now and then, when it happened Music was taken upon a night hunt and Damsel left. All three ran deviously, sniffing audibly and visible only when they leaped higher than the sedge. It came up to the waist, in places even up to the shoulders. So the hunters cried upon it - hence the tactics of the dogs. When Damsel found first. Daddy Jim gave a yell at least three miles wide and half a mile high. Daddy Jim's dogs stood to him for wife, and children, and friends. So the others never in the least grudged his triumph; Little Moses, indeed, led the whooping after him, quite as though Wrong was not in the field. Everybody ran pellmell after the dogs, all three in cheery full cry. Somehow their notes accorded well - particularly well when they were undervoiced by lusty yells and whooping. It was a jocund rush to the persimmon trees. There often the moonshine showed a couple of gray gluttons feasting in the very tip. Persimmon trees are ill to climb; they are not only distressingly slender, but have few low- growing branches. Notwithstanding somebody at once went up to shake out the fcasters. The climber got as near them as he dared go, then set the tree rocking, at the same time shaking with all his might the especial branch to which the possum clung. If they were fat - and what November possum is not? - he easily shook loose their foothold, but then the tail came into play. A possum's tail is as long as him- self, very strong, and hairless for six inches from the tip. With this hairless part he can grip and cling, wrapping it round and round a small bough, and holding, fast, though the shaking may swing him back and forth like a pendulum. Sometimes, if he felt the tail-hold slipping, he let go, and made a mad leap for a neighboring bough. But when at last he was shaken out, or if that was impracticable, the tree itself chopped down, he lay seemingly dead, eyes shut, tail limp, paws limber, a lump of fur and flesh, not even stirring at a sniffing dog. He did not breathe, indeed, so long as his captors stood watching him, but once their eyes turned elsewhere, he was up and away like a flash. He rarely got the chance, though. Somebody either hustled him into a stout gunnysack, or slipped his tail into the cleft end of a sapling, and swung him over the shoulders. A double catch - that is, two possums in one tree - was balanced at either end of the sapling, and sent joyously home. A fat possum is too heavy to carry uselessly throughout a night hunt; how much more, then, two fat possums? The beasts were always kept alive, fed and often fattened, until wanted for cooking. Unless dressed as soon as killed, the flesh becomes rank and unpleasant. It was odd to see the dogs strike a wild cat's track. They ran faster than ever, but with bristles up, and a deeper menacing note in their barking. Wrong always seemed to be protesting - he trailed nothing but possums and coons, though he could do no less than join in the crying when Music's growling note said "Varmint!"

  Toward twelve o'clock, when the moon stood high enough to light up tall timber, the possum hunt turned into a coon hunt.

  Coons, compared to possums, are lean at their fattest, but of a high game flavor, savory enough after a surfeit of sweet fat. Old man Shack said, "A yearlin' coon that hadn't hustled hisself too much, killed when the sign was right, skinned with the head on, and fixed up nice with pepper and salt, an' flour doin's inside, was better'n any wild turkey that ever gobbled or strutted"; but the old man, it was well known, would eat pretty much anything that could be got inside an oven, or roasted in the ashes. The world lay all enchanted at midnight, with the dew crisping into frost under the silver moonshine. There were white blurs and blotches upon the tree trunks, and a glorious mottle of light and shadow all over the rustling leaves. The dogs ran freer, and bayed louder, the whoops were keener and more thrilling. Wrong took the lead then as of right. No coon ever littered could trick his keen nose - not even by springing from one tree to another for may be three hundred yards before he came to earth, and set off at a dead run for his waterside castle. Wrong ran leaping, catching the scent in air, barking as he ran, his eyes glinting green fire. When at last he treed, either at the nest or away from it, he was the very moral of quivering eagerness until he saw the axes out, and somebody building a fire. Then he lay down sedately, put his nose between his forepaws, but kept his eyes fast upon the tree. When the coon was shaken out, or the tree came crashing down. Wrong was upon his foe in the twinkling of an eye. Coons are hard and bitter fighters, turning upon their backs as they touch the earth, and striking out furiously with teeth and claws. But no matter how big and savage the coon, nor what a master of fence he showed himself. Wrong never let one get away. Wrong had both the wit and the art to nip Brer Coon betwixt ear and shoulder, whirl him over and finish him with a quick crunch at the back of the neck. Sometimes when a nest tree came down, and a whole coon colony was chopped out of the snug grass-lined woody chamber in which they had thought to sleep away part of the winter, Wrong had to choose betwixt old coons and young, and always chose those who would put up the best fight.

  Coons hibernate but slightly, sleeping commonly from the winter solstice to about "Ground Hog day," which is the second of February. They nest high in hollows well up the trunks of tall trees. A warm spell in January wakes them to sit nodding and blinking in the doors of their holes. But the sleeping is evidently not to escape cold weather, since they run about over light, early snows; and if the creeks, at their lowest in November, skim over from sudden severe weather, the coons often break the ice to wash their feet, their faces and their breakfast, thus showing themselves the cleanliest among nest-making animals. Joe had had more than one young coon for a pet. They are pretty, intelligent, and full of cunning tricks, but very mischievous possum. The yams were dumped right in the middle of the fire, covered first with embers, then with blazing brands that would shortly be coals, and left for half an hour, men and dogs the while lying supine upon the leaves, feet to the fire, the men telling ghost tales, or hunting stories, or the signs and wonders of witchwork. Joe listened drowsily, watching the moonshine creep, the fire shine flicker, until his eyelids shut of their own weight. And then he knew nothing more until Dan hauled him up standing, thrust something hot into his hands, and said, loudly:

  Sharp axes with strong and willing arms to ply them, bring down very big trees in a little while. By time the coon was caught, or the colony chopped out, the fire was blazing royally, and potato roasting in order. Sometimes the potatoes, sweet yellow yams, came out of the gunnysack, or the pockets of the hunters. Oftener somebody had slipped aside to plunder an outlying patch. Nobody ever objected to such plundering. It was accepted, indeed, as the sign of good neighborhood; besides, the plundered knew their potatoes might come back to them in the shape of a fat " Wake up, ole son! Everybody else done eat er hot tater - eben ter de dawgs."

  Going home through the gray small hours with cocks crowing all about, the hunters often sang. Daddy Jim never sang out loud, but droned a low, deep underchord. Most of the songs were but snatches. Dan said Daddy Jim knew every song that ever was made for a night hunt, but wanted to keep them all to himself. Little Moses also knew songs, and many tales of the animals, but he had a fitful memory - it was not once a month he could sing anything or tell any- thing straight through.