It is not easy being the strapping young ten-year-old out in
the woods with two grown men. When you
are ten, there are lots of things to learn and much teasing to take from the
old guys. They take you on snipe hunts,
make you carry the cast iron skillet, and in every way make your life a misery. But any ten year old boy would agree that even
the worst humiliating prank is preferable to sitting in fifth grade listening
to Mrs. Peabody try to teach you fractions or grammar.
The thing about ten year olds, is that they soon grow up and
turn into old men themselves, full of pranks to play on the unsuspecting. Trapper Dave was just such a ten year old who
had turned into a seasoned Veteran of Great Pranks. But back when he was ten,
he wasn’t Trapper Dave, he was just little Dave P. Dave’s dad promised him a fall hunt, and they
headed off to a great little hunting cabin that Dad and his brother Uncle Basil
had built. Well, “built” was perhaps an exaggeration. “Constructed” wasn’t even
quite right, and if you had been paying attention in Mrs. Peabody’s class you
might be able to come up with adjectives like “fabricated” and “slapdash”.
Whether or not little Dave paid attention back
then has yet to be determined, as this story is not about Mrs. Peabody’s
classroom. “Slapdash” will do to describe
Mr. P’s hunting cabin. And “cabin” is
far too grandiose a term. Hut or shack won’t
even do, for it was merely a pole held up by ropes stretched between a big
T-pole on one side and a stake on the other.
Suspended from the poles was simple black plastic. The door was canvas, in one corner was a bed
where Mr. P slept. Uncle Basil and
Trapper Dave slept on the floor. They
had a small pot belly stove in one corner.
In a hunting tent at night there was very little to do,
except sit by the warm stove. The main
entertainment was to set mouse traps, then watch the ensuing entrapment of the
miniature camp robbers. After 10 had
been trapped, it was bedtime. Sometimes
bedtime came mighty early, other times, not until midnight. You could bet on what hour it when ten mice
had been caught. At that point, the
Coleman lamp was turned out, and pitch blackness would descend.
It is difficult for those who haven’t been out in the woods
to understand the correlation between blackness and night sounds. The darker the night, the louder the
sounds. A ripping man-fart in a tent on
a pitch black night is nearly inaudible compared to a snapping stick or
rustling leaves. A deer tiptoeing
through camp booms like Dolby surround sound.
A chipmunk scurrying across a forgotten tarp is thundering. Each noise rivets attention from
ten-year-olds that Mrs. Peabody the fifth grade teacher could never in her
wildest dreams command.
Dave could hear snoring certainly, but something else caused
him to freeze and hold his breath.
Something was snuffling. Something large. Larger than a boar. Very large.
L-A-R-G-E! The snuffler sniffed
and poked at the plastic right beside Dave, and then rustled along the plastic
siding towards the piece of canvas that served as a door.
There was no food in the hut. The men practiced clean camping and had hung
all the food in a garbage bin, suspended from a rope, but animals can be
curious.
“Uncle Basil, wake up, there’s a bear!” whispered Dave.
“Mmmmph.”
“Uncle Basil, there’s a bear!”
“Ha, ha, I’ll bet.”
“No, really! Listen.”
It couldn’t be denied there was something sniffing the
plastic sides of the tent.
“Aw, go back to sleep, it’s a raccoon,” yawned Uncle Basil.
“No Uncle Basil, it’s a bear, and he’s going to come in.”
By this time Uncle Basil had deigned to raise up on one
elbow and determined that there was indeed something present just outside the
door. At that point, a bonafide bear poked its head through the
canvas door. Uncle Basil flicked his
powerful flashlight on right in the bear’s eyes, blinding as well as scaring it,
so that the bear took off and plowed right into the T-pole where the rope
holding up the hut was tied. Down came
the pole, followed by the whole hunting shack, waking Mr. P in a spasm of
questions simultaneously addressed to both heaven and hell.
Uncle Basil, swathed in plastic, was laughing his head
off. Trapper Dave batted off plastic and
tried to get out before the bear dragged the whole hut down the hill. When the dust cleared, Mr. P. did not believe there was any
bear involved. He was pretty sure that
he’d had a prank played on him, in
spite of Uncle Basil and Trapper Dave both insisting it was a bear.
Of course, since Trapper Dave himself told me this story,
I’m not so sure a prank hasn’t been played on me, believing such a tale.
Trapper Dave is sitting by the fire right now chuckling to himself, and
I’m pretty sure that twinkle was aimed at me.
He’d better be careful though, he knows not with whom he deals. I paid attention in Mrs. Peabody’s class and
can come up with adjectives.
