THE CUNNING COYOTE

A lthough the buffalo and deer disappeared from the area around our farm long before I was born, the coyotes had not. Sometimes I saw one or two, and sometimes I saw many.

One day in the autumn, when I was still too young to have a gun of my own, I went with Chris, one of my older brothers, to hunt for coyotes and rabbits. It was a beautiful crisp day, and the leaves had just begun to change color. We walked about a half mile or so to what we called the "big pasture," and as we descended the gradual slope of one of the hills we heard unusual barking sounds from a hill across a ravine in front of us. There, in a clearing on the edge of a woods, were five or six coyotes in a group, looking almost as if they were having a meeting.

My brother immediately released the safety catch on his rifle, steadied it on a fence post in front of him, and took careful aim. After what seemed like a very long wait there was a loud explosion and a spurt of dust on the hill in front of us where the bullet hit the ground. Two other shots followed in quick succession, and two more spurts of dust could be seen. To the astonishment of both of us, however, all of the coyotes ran away. Not one seemed to have been hit.

We ran down into the ravine and up the slope of the hill where the coyotes had been standing, but there was no sign of blood or any indication that any of them had been wounded. I was even more surprised than Chris; after all, older brothers were supposed to be accurate shots.

We both stood for a while and exclaimed over our bad luck, until Chris noticed that the gun sight had been set for close range shooting; all of the bullets had fallen short. The walk home was not very exciting, but at least we could blame the gun rather than our marksmanship.

One year Mother raised about eighty turkeys from eggs that had been laid in the spring in the grass and bushes around our farm buildings. As soon as the chicks were big enough to walk, the mother turkeys would take them far into the fields to look for insects. As a rule they came home by themselves in the late afternoon, and if they did not, the younger children had to go after them and drive them to the barnyard, where they roosted on the buildings and trees for the night. Because the chicks could die from pneumonia, it was also important that they not stay in the fields in rainy weather.
The turkeys liked to be free to leave early in the morning and to return when their stomachs were full. Some of the farmers kept their turkeys within a fenced area, but my mother did not. She always referred to the turkeys as "hers," and the money obtained from selling them in the autumn always went to her. She, in turn, always used the money for the family.

One morning in late July the turkeys came back to the farm much earlier than usual, and Mother immediately noticed many were missing — about fifty, as it turned out. We immediately went to search for them in the nearby pasture, and soon found feathers and bones scattered about. From that we knew that coyotes had killed them. Turkeys are quite defenseless against attackers if they are not big enough to fly, and tame turkeys cannot fly very far even when they are fully grown. Wild turkeys, of course, have no such problem.

When I saw what had happened, and how saddened my mother was, I thought immediately of the rifle that always hung on the wall above one of the kitchen windows. It had belonged to one of my older brothers, and I had inherited it from him when he had left home to find work. Although I was not very old at the time, I knew how to use it, so I began to imagine how I could find and kill the coyotes, thus at least saving the turkeys that were still alive. Before you can shoot coyotes, however, you must find them.

The next morning I got up at first light to make certain I would be out of the house when the turkeys headed for the fields. I took the rifle from its rack, loaded it with one or two shells— they were very expensive for me— and went into the pasture in the same direction the turkeys had taken. In my imagination, which was working very fast, I was certain that one shell would be enough once I got a coyote in my sights. I could feel my heart beating, sending blood pumping through the ends of my fingers that gripped the stock of my gun. But no matter how hard I looked, I could not see any coyotes. All was calm and peaceful as the young turkeys followed their mothers to search for insects.

The next morning I tried again, even though it was much harder to get up so early a second time. And this time I did see a single coyote off in the distance. Unfortunately for me, the coyote never stopped even for a second, and I knew I was not a good enough marksman to hit it on the run. Shells were too costly to take a chance on missing, so I lowered the rifle, turned and walked slowly home.

The third morning I stayed in bed until Father called me at the usual time to help with the milking.

Coyotes have to travel long distances for their food. They search for rabbits, mice and even barnyard fowl— if they can find them without having to go too close to farm buildings where they might be shot at or chased by dogs. Except when mother coyotes are having puppies, coyotes usually sleep in shallow places that they dig under bushes. But sometimes they even sleep in the tops of straw stacks. And that's where I finally spotted a single coyote one day when I was going from the house to the barn.

It was a wintry day, and the wind out of the northwest brought tears to my eyes, but as I gazed from the top of a small hill, I noticed what appeared to be a coyote on the top of the straw stack about a quarter of a mile away. It seemed to dig in the straw for a few minutes, but then it disappeared from sight without appearing anywhere on the ground around the stack. I decided I might just be able to shoot a coyote. My eyes were very keen in those days, and I rarely missed either game birds or wild animals when hunting, even if they were a considerable distance out in the fields or in the pasture.

I went back to our kitchen, took the rifle from the wall, loaded it with several shells, and set off. I was careful to keep the wind in my face so that the coyote would not detect my scent before I got within shooting distance, and as I got closer I also tried to walk without making cracking noises on the ice and snow that covered the ground. I crept closer and closer, and yet there was no movement from the area of the stack. I could feel my heart pounding, and I even tried to breath more quietly.

What I had failed to foresee was that the closer I got to the straw stack, the less I could see of the top of it, yet that was where the coyote was sleeping. I suddenly realized I would have to go around the stack, because if I climbed on top of it the frightened coyote would run over the other side before I could even get a bead on it. I took a step to the left, and my foot came down on a small piece of ice and made a cracking sound. At almost the same instant I heard the coyote moving quickly in the straw. I ran as fast as I could in the direction I was certain it was going, but coyotes are cunning as well as fast. The coyote chose to go down the side of the haystack farthest from me, and it was already far out in the field before I got a look at it. It was running very fast toward the top of the nearby hill.

I decided I should try at least one shot before the coyote disappeared from sight. I raised the gun to my shoulder, tried to keep in mind that one must aim ahead of a fast moving target, and squeezed the trigger. I felt the recoil of the gun against my shoulder, saw the bullet send up a shower of frozen earth as it struck the ground way ahead of me, and then heard the sound of it ricochet off into the distance. Instantly I knew that I had missed. There was no time for a second shot. The coyote disappeared over the top of the hill.

Several years went by before I saw another coyote. I was hunting for pheasants and prairie chickens, and was carrying a shotgun instead of a rifle. It was autumn and not very cold. As I came over a small hill about a mile from our house, a coyote suddenly dashed out from under low bushes where it had been sleeping. It seemed to be surprised by my appearance and ran very fast away from me. But since a shotgun shoots several small pellets at one time it is not necessary to aim so carefully before pulling the trigger. I lifted the gun to my shoulder and fired in almost the same instant. Dust rose from the ground in little puffs as the pellets struck around the fleeing coyote. I was certain I had hit my target but the coy coyote nevertheless kept on running. I ran after it, loading my gun as I went. A few yards along its path I saw it stagger and fall. I had my first coyote.

Heavy though the dead coyote was, I put it on my back and carried it back to the house, where I proudly showed it to my mother and father. Then I set to work skinning it and putting it on a stretcher. As I worked, I knew that I couldn't get much money for the hide because it was not cold enough for the fur to be prime. But I also knew that the local county government paid a bounty for any coyote killed, because all such animals were regarded as predators by the farmers. One had only to bring the hide to the county official as proof, and he would cut a notch in its ears and pay the money, in this case two dollars.

I was glad to receive the money, but on the way home I kept thinking how much more I would have received for the hide if it only had been winter. I probably could have gotten as much as thirty dollars. As I told myself, however, no one pays for wishes.

"A BIRD IN THE HAND . . ."

When I was about thirteen I began to hunt game birds$BMQ(Brairie chickens, pheasants, ducks, and so forth, with a shotgun, a twelve gauge single shot model I inherited from my brother Chris. For a time I also used an automatic shotgun that I borrowed from Thorvald, my brother-in-law, but I soon gave it up because it used too many shells too quickly. Even though I was doing a man's work, I was still getting an allowance of only ten cents every Saturday.

It was about this time that I heard, and learned, the meaning of the expression "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." An experience I had hunting wild geese was responsible.

Before I had been hunting very many years, I managed to bring home different game birds. My mother cooked them and I, together with the few members of the family still at home, ate them with varying degrees of pleasure. Pheasants were my favorites, and ducks least so. I also shot many rabbits, but their meat was known to be tough, and my mother never cooked them. I knew of only one family that ate them with any regularity; the father was a farm worker, and the family was very poor.

Over time it became a dream of mine to bring home a wild Canada goose for my mother to prepare. As we sometimes had a tame goose for Christmas, and I always enjoyed it, I liked to imagine what a wild goose would be like roasting in the oven.

In the early spring on our farm one of the distinctive sounds came from the long "V"- formations of geese heading for Canada. Occasionally they landed in our fields on ponds formed by the melting snow, there to rest and feed on their way north. On one or two occasions I even tried to fire a powerful rifle at them high in the sky, but that only made them honk a little louder and waver in their line of flight. In a way I was glad I missed because it was illegal to shoot game birds in the spring.

One Sunday morning in late October, the only day of the week I did not have to work in the fields, I took my shotgun and walked about three miles to the valley of the Sheyenne River. It was a beautiful, clear, mild day, with just a hint of the colder weather soon to come. Ducks and geese were already on their way south for the winter. I carefully approached places in the river where there was open water, hoping I might find ducks or geese. Suddenly there was a loud flapping of wings and the unmistakable sound of wild geese. Out of the river came a flock of about fifty of them, but they were too far away for my gun. I crouched low in the bushes, hoping I wouldn't be seen and that they might circle back over my head. Instead, to my great surprise, they flew only a short distance to a plowed field nearby, where they landed.

Very carefully I edged my way to the river channel so that the bank would be between me and the resting geese. I crouched low and made my way forward slowly, trying hard not to make a sound by snapping twigs or crushing dry grass with my feet. The wind was also in my favor, blowing from the geese to me. My own heart beat was the loudest sound I could hear.

When I was certain I had reached a point directly opposite the geese, I worked my way to the top of the river bank through the bushes and dry grass. When I found a clear view of the field just beyond I carefully studied what was in front of me. Nearly all the geese were resting on the ground. Only two or three were on their feet looking around, and they seemed to be acting as sentinels. While debating which one I should aim at first, pictures began to appear in my mind of my mother bending over a roasting goose in the oven, testing to see if it was ready to eat, her face warm from the heat of the stove, and on it a smile of approval for me for having brought home a goose.

I brought my gun slowly up to my shoulder until the sight was on the closest goose, one that was resting on the ground and facing me. I steadied the gun, and slowly tightened my finger on the trigger. It went off with a loud roar, and my shoulder jerked back with the recoil. My eyes were watering from staring so intently at the target. To my utter surprise, the goose I had aimed at immediately took to the air, as did all the others. How could I have missed at that distance, with a stationary target, was a mystery. My only hope was that the flock might circle back over my head and give me another shot, but instead they flew out of sight. I was dejected. I had been hunting for several years, but I had never before seen a goose within range, and, as in this case, sitting down.

I slowly started home, going through my mind what had happened. I finally decided that because I had fired at the goose facing me the pellets from my shot had merely glanced off its very heavy covering of feathers. Perhaps I should have aimed at its head, or at one of the sentries which had been standing. But there was no second chance, neither that day nor in the years to follow. I concluded that it was true, that a goose in the hand would have been worth the fifty in the field, or even the one I had imagined roasting in the oven. When I told my mother what had happened, she seemed to agree.

GUNS AND ACCIDENTS
A lthough most men in my community, and most boys from their early teens, grew up with guns and knew how to use them, accidents did occur. One young man, probably in his late teens, carelessly put the palm of his hand over the barrel of his automatic shot gun. Without thinking, he pressed down on the barrel; the gun went off and the pellets made a hole in the center of his palm about the size of a half dollar. Although the hand healed in time, it remained partially paralyzed for the rest of his life.

On another occasion, while standing around in a field in the winter with several other boys my age, all of whom had guns, one with a powerful 25.20 rifle accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the frozen earth between the feet of one of my companions, and then caromed off into the distance. We all agreed it had been a close call.

When I went away to college in l934, my younger brother Art, who was still in grade school, remained on the farm to help my father. Although a less eager hunter than I, he nevertheless inherited my guns, just as I had inherited guns from my older brothers.

One winter day he decided to take the 25.20 rifle to the closed porch, which was just off the kitchen, to clean. To do this he sat on a chair with the gun across his lap. As it was a

repeating rifle with room for about l4 shells in the magazine, he properly worked the lever action and pulled the trigger each time to make certain there was no shell left in the chamber. He was unaware that the barrel was pointing directly toward the living room, where my parents and Hansina, one of my older sisters, were sitting. Also unknown to Art, a single shell apparently had been stuck in the magazine. When he worked the lever action to clear the gun this single shell moved into the chamber and went off when he pulled the trigger. Fortunately the bullet struck a steel barrel in which my mother melted snow to obtain soft water, penetrated one side and then fell to the bottom of the barrel when it struck the opposite side. The path of the bullet was directly toward my sister in the living room. She very probably owed her life to the two walls of the barrel. Everyone felt greatly shaken by the experience.

When I was quite small, an older neighbor boy invited me to play with him near one of his father's granaries. Very soon, in a way intended to impress me, he pulled a 30.30 caliber live rifle shell from his pocket. I had never before seen one that large. It was at least four times the length of a bullet in the end. He proceeded to put it on a rock in front of me, picked up a hammer and struck the powder end of the shell a powerful blow. There was a deafening explosion, and the bullet flew off into the distance with a buzzing sound, probably caused by its tumbling end over end. Not until many years later did I realize how deadly that bullet could have been, unguided as it was. At the time I was impressed, and we both laughed.

My older brother Chris was less fortunate. He was about ten years my senior. One autumn Sunday he had driven his old Model-T Ford (in the mid-1920s we had two Fords, and Chris had built a box in place of the rear seat on this one), to the Sheyenne River valley, near the Great Northern high trestle bridge that crosses the river. In an area with lots of low brush growing around the banks of the river, where there were many brush rabbits, or cotton tails, to hunt, he joined his friends, who were all armed with shotguns. I was not along, but the subsequent events of the day are as vivid in my mind as if I had been.
After hunting with his friends for a time, Chris decided to drive elsewhere. He placed his gun, butt end down, on the floor of his Ford, and with the barrel resting on the edge of the passenger seat. He left a shell in the chamber of the gun. After driving only a short distance, the car hit a bump, causing the gun to slide down in such a way that the hammer struck a hard object, and went off. Some of the pellets from the l2-gauge shell tore off part of the cuff of the right arm of his leather jacket and then lodged in his right shoulder. Fortunately for Chris, most of the pellets went just above his shoulder and past his cheek, into the air behind him.

Chris drove the car home, and went immediately to a doctor about thirty miles away. The doctor used a tweezer to remove most of the pellets that had gone into the fleshy part of the shoulder, but left in place those that were too deeply embedded. The injury was not regarded as severe. Nevertheless, there was considerable pain, and Chris returned home a shaken young man. After that, however, he took considerable pleasure in baring his shoulder to show the blue marks where the pellets remained embedded.

HUNTING AND TRAPPING

H unting was a popular sport for many of the men and boys in the community. In the autumn we hunted wild ducks, geese, prairie chickens, and, by the time I was in high school, pheasants as well. In the wintertime we hunted rabbits, both the smaller cotton tail and the larger rabbits that turned white as the winter arrived. Sometimes the animals were tricked by nature because they changed to white before the snow came, and thus lost their camouflage.

In the spring and summer the younger boys did most of the hunting, and then the target was nearly always gophers, which burrowed in the ground and made their presence known by a high pitched whistle and a flick of their tails. That was why North Dakota was called the "Flicker Tail State."

Gophers were regarded as pests, and farmers were glad to have them killed because they burrowed in wheat fields and ate the green wheat shoots that came out of the ground in the spring. In some counties the local government even paid a bounty of a certain number of cents per tail for each gopher killed. That was not true in the county where I lived, but I still killed many gophers, at first by trapping and snaring them, and later, when I was old enough to have a rifle, by shooting them. Although my father would have been pleased to have them all killed, I very early concluded that if I wanted to have gophers to hunt in the future then I had best not kill all of them at one time. Fortunately, the gophers produced many young each spring, and one hole would often have five or six young gophers sitting on the edge. Once I managed to kill four with one shot from my .22 caliber rifle.

Rats were even more of a pest, and my father wanted all of them destroyed because they gnawed holes in the floors of the granary and other places where we stored grain, causing the grain to spill out onto the ground. To encourage their destruction he paid me five cents for every one I killed. What he never knew, and what I never told anyone, was that I always left at least two alive so that they would have babies and I could keep earning nickels.

Trapping animals was a wintertime activity, because their fur did not become prime until the cold weather arrived, and if it was not prime the fur-buying companies paid very little for the hides. Also, if there was snow it was much easier to follow the tracks of the animals to the holes where they slept or to the best places to set a trap. Weasel, muskrat, mink, badger, skunk, raccoon, coyote and fox were the most common fur-bearing animals in our part of North Dakota.

Once an animal was caught it had to be skinned, and the skin had to be stretched on a wood or wire frame until it dried enough to keep its shape when removed. It then could be wrapped in a package and sent by mail to a fur-buying store in one of the big cities. Even the hide of the white rabbit could be sold in this way, although the price paid was usually no more than twenty-five cents. For the other animals one could receive anywhere from a few dollars to twenty or even thirty dollars. A diligent hunter could thus earn extra money during the winter by setting out what was called a "trap line," or traps set over a wide area in places where the

animals were likely to come in search of food. All of the animals we trapped, except for rabbits, hunted for their own food, in the form of birds, other animals such as mice, and sometimes even the farmer's chickens, ducks and turkeys.
I didn't really begin to trap until I was in high school. Because of the drought and the depression from l930, money became very scarce and my parents (and most of the farmers in the community) became very poor. There was not enough rain for the crops, and farmers had to sell what they grew at very low prices.
I managed to save enough money to buy a few traps, and found others that had been left by my older brothers, all of whom had already left the farm. I also listened carefully to a friend a little older than I, who had become quite successful at trapping.

I first put out traps to catch weasels. These are long, thin and wiry animals that run long distances in the night in their search for food, and for small birds in particular. In the wintertime they turn white except for a touch of black on the tip of their tails. Their skins are used to make ermine coats.

To my surprise, I very quickly caught several weasels. Because I had farm chores to do, it was usually late forenoon before I could inspect my trap line, and by that time the animals caught in the traps had nearly always frozen stiff in the sharp cold air. Encouraged by my success with weasels I then decided I would try to catch a mink, for which I could earn considerably more money.

The mink is somewhat like a weasel in shape, but it is considerably larger, and it has brown fur. The mink is known to be very cunning, and is thus even more of a challenge for the trapper. It frequently runs along small streams, where it leaves no foot prints, in its search for food. So the best place to catch it is in a stream. It is easier to hide the trap there (especially if covered with leaves), and the water hides the scent of man. The mink has a very keen sense of smell, and will avoid places where a person has been.

Armed with the information that my friend had given me about how to find and recognize the footprints of a mink, I walked a couple of miles from my home to an area of low hills and ravines. In one ravine there was a small stream that kept running even in the winter. I searched carefully in the snow over a large area, looking for mink tracks, trying to make certain I did not confuse them with those of a weasel. When I felt certain I had found the right tracks I followed them for a considerable distance. At one point they disappeared into the stream and then did not come out until much later. At that point I was certain I was tracking a mink. I carefully set the trap in the water and covered it with leaves. Then I marked the spot so I could find it the next day, and hurried home.

As I strode toward the house my thoughts kept leaping ahead of my steps. I found myself thinking about all the things I would be able to buy with the money from the sale of the fur, even though I had not yet caught the mink. One of my first purchases would be shells for my rifle; I had only a few left. I also thought about my mother and how little money she had to buy the things that she needed for herself and the house. When I came frosty and puffing into the warm kitchen, with its familiar and appealing smell of food, I got carried away with the fantasy world that had been building in my mind. I told Mother that if I caught a mink, as I was certain I would, I would give her half the money from the sale of the skin. She listened with great interest and thanked me, her fingers caressing her threadbare apron. I knew that she had no money whatsoever of her own.

In those days farmers rarely gave their wives a money allowance, for the month or week, and usually handed them only enough for groceries or clothing for the family. The money from selling eggs, butter, cream, chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese had to go to the needs of the family first. When there was nothing left over the wife had to ask her husband for money, and during the depression years he frequently had very little.

The next day, as soon as I finished breakfast and my chores, I hurried toward the ravine with the stream, cradling my rifle in my arm. The air was so cold that my breath came out in clouds of steam. Once in the ravine I quickly found my tracks from the day before, and followed them to the marker I had left by the trap. As it turned out, I had camouflaged the trap so well with wet leaves, that although I stared intently into the water for a minute or two, I could not locate it. But there was no mink. I searched for fresh mink tracks leading into the stream, but found none, and decided the mink had not come back the following day. I studied the location of the trap, wondering if I could improve it, but I decided that I could not. I would wait one more day before searching for another place to set it.

I walked home more slowly than I had come from it. As I went along, though, my confidence began to return, and by the time I reached the house I decided that no mistakes had been made— that it was only logical that the mink would not take the same path two days in succession when searching for food.

When I told my mother there had been nothing in the trap, I stressed what I expected the next day, or the day after that, rather than telling her how disappointed I had first felt at finding the trap untouched.

The next day was clear and cold. It was easy to retrace my steps Soon I was again in the familiar ravine and walking briskly along the banks of the now familiar stream. I did not even have to search for the marker for my trap. When I came to the exact spot I saw the movement of a brown form in the water. My heart beat so fast I could feel it in my fingers. There was the mink, its front feet securely fastened by the trap.

I carefully shot the mink in a way to kill it instantly and avoid damaging the skin anymore than necessary. I removed the mink from the trap and stretched it on the snow, the better to determine its size and to admire its silky brown fur. I was pleased with what I saw.

On the way back home, the walk took no time at all; even the cold wind seemed to have lost its bite. As soon as I opened the door, I called to Mother to come to the unheated porch and see what I had caught. She came, smiled warmly, and seemed to share my pride.

The next step was to skin the mink. Skinning a wild animal is not difficult, once you have learned how. What is important is not to cut the skin, and that sometimes is difficult. Once a cut has been made around the openings in the body and by the feet, the hide can be pulled off, much as one pulls a sweater over one's head. Skinning weasels and rabbits had been good practice for me.

After skinning the mink, I had to make a stretcher that followed the outlines of its body. It had to be large enough to stretch the skin very tight, yet not so large as to tear it. Once the mink skin was on the stretcher there was nothing to do but to leave it two or three weeks to dry, take it to the post office for mailing, and then wait for the check to come.

When the check arrived it read "seven dollars and fifty cents." To me that was a lot of money. My mother could get only twelve cents for a dozen eggs and $l.75 for five gallons of sweet cream. But as I fingered the check and thought of what I would buy, I started having second thoughts about my promise to share it with my mother. One half for her meant only $3.25 for me, and I was the one who had caught the mink. I had also, however, been taught that a promise was a promise. I went to the kitchen with the check in my hand, showed it to Mother, and rather weakly offered her the share I had promised her, secretly hoping that she might return even a part of it to me. Instead, she thanked me warmly. She probably felt like hugging and kissing me, except that we did not do that in my family, especially with someone of high school age.

Many, many years later, when Mother was gray-haired and no longer living on the farm, and when I was home for a visit, she asked me if I remembered the time I had shared the money from a mink pelt with her. I said yes, somewhat puzzled because it had all seemed so long ago and I had not even thought about it for many years. She then said, " I hated to take the money from you, but you know my aprons were worn to nothing and I so much needed new ones."

I merely smiled and shrugged my shoulders rather indifferently, but secretly I was glad I had kept my promise so many years ago.

GOING FISHING

T here were no lakes near our farm, and only one river, the Sheyenne, so fishing was not something that we did very often. We could not buy fish in our small town. Frozen fish were unheard of; no one had refrigerators or ice boxes. So when we ate fish they usually came from a can. Nevertheless, I always liked fish, and so did my parents, who had been accustomed to eating them in their native country of Denmark. Next to hunting, catching fish was one of the things I liked most to do.

I went on fishing trips to the river with my older brothers a few times, which required walking two or three miles, but I don't remember ever catching fish of any importance. I did see a few farmers living near the river, though, who caught fish with a net stretched across it. They left the net there day and night until there were enough fish in it for a meal, and, as I learned very early, what they were doing was illegal. My father and others never said anything about this, though, and the game wardens rarely came by in our area. The general attitude seemed to be that the wardens really had no business coming around anyway.

One winter when I was in my early teens, I began to hear stories about grownups fishing through a hole in the river ice, catching so many fish that they virtually filled a truck. They were fishing through the ice at night with a spear, using a lantern to attract the fish, even though both of these things were illegal. They were even throwing away fish they regarded as too small, I heard, thinking that seemed rather wasteful.

I decided to try to catch some fish myself. I quickly learned that the best place to fish was at the junction of a stream with the river. At certain times in the winter the fish apparently came up the stream in large numbers to spawn.

Equipped one night with a spear and kerosene lamp, I therefore made my way a couple of miles over the hills and through the brush and trees to the place in the river where a stream joined it. Since holes had already been cut in the ice, the current was rather fast, and the temperature was rather mild, I thought all I had to do was to put my lantern on the ice near a hole, pick up my spear and be ready for the first fish that swam by. Unfortunately, none came. After about an hour I picked up my equipment and went home.

A few days later I went back to the same place in the river, but this time I had some friends with me. I was the only one with a spear, so I went first to one of the holes. To my astonishment the fish were so thick in the water they were practically swimming on top of each other. I quickly speared as many as I thought I could carry home, and then gave the spear to my companions to use. Since I had not brought a sack to carry the fish, I cut willow branches and trimmed them so each branch could go through the gills of a fish, and hold it and several others. I could then hold the end of the branch in my hands and carry or drag the fish across the snow to my house.

As there was more than one hole in the ice, I went in search of another. Sure enough, it, too, was literally filled with fish. As a dare to myself I kneeled down by the hole, and with my bare hands tried to scoop some fish out of the icy water. I succeeded in flipping several out onto the ice, where they very quickly became stiff from the cold.
By the time I arrived home with my heavy load of fish, my arms felt as if they were about to fall off. But I quickly forgot about that when I saw how pleased my mother and father were. In Denmark, it had been common for them to eat fresh fish, but here they had not had any for many years. That night Mother gave me a big reward in the form of a fried fish dinner with mashed potatoes and other good things to eat.

A BOBBING TARGET

T here were guns in our house for as far back as I can remember: rifles, a shot gun and at least one snub-nosed .22 caliber pistol. My father did not hunt but all of my bothers did. One of my sisters, Hansina, even shot a dog that was in a pack roaming through our farm area. I can recall from a very early age standing in the front yard with my older brothers and their friends, holding my hands over my ears as they fired shotguns at tin cans thrown in the air. I thought the loud bang the guns made was very exciting. To go hunting with one of my older brothers was a special thrill.

Even before I started school I pretended to hunt with a broken rifle in which I put match heads instead of real shells. Although the match heads made only a small bang when I pulled the trigger, it sounded very realistic to me. One day while out in our big pasture with other members of the family I even fired my broken gun at what I was certain was a coyote. It hardly noticed. Many years were to pass before I had an opportunity to fire a real gun at a real coyote.

The first gun my parents permitted me to have was a BB gun, a Daisy. A compressed spring caused round lead pellets to fly out the barrel when the trigger was pulled. It was highly inaccurate, and the pellets did not go very far, so hunting anything other than sparrows with it was out of the question.

By the time I was thirteen or fourteen I very much wanted to have my own .22 caliber rifle. As my weekly allowance was only ten cents paid every Saturday night, buying one with my own money was out of the question. But over time I sensed that my parents were sympathetic to my hopes, and to encourage them further I started deliberately leaving the Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogs we had around the house open to the gun section. Although guns were also available in the town a mile away, they were considerably more expensive. The catalogs, with their marvelous variety of goods of all descriptions, were also our window to the big cities.

My parents finally agreed that I could order a single shot, bolt action .22 rifle (a repeating rifle was much too expensive) and 500 rounds of ammunition. That seemed like a lot of shells to me, but again they were much less expensive through the catalog than if bought locally. (I did not know until much later that they were also greatly inferior in quality). In my state of excitement I was certain I would have enough shells to last me for years.

After I got the gun, whenever I had free time I practised on tin cans and other fixed targets, and on sparrows, of which we had many. The sparrows were regarded as pests, but every time I tried to shoot them, they seemed to fly away just about the time I pulled the trigger. There was no adult to train me in handling a gun, and I was also convinced I knew what to do.

On Saturday, in summer and in autumn, it was my responsibility to kill one or two roosters for our Sunday dinner, which we always ate at noon. I had to catch the roosters, which could run quite fast and even fly a short distance, behead them with an axe on a block of wood, and then pluck the feathers after dunking the entire bird in a bucket of boil ing hot water. From that point my mother took over. With my new rifle, however, I told my mother one Saturday that I would no longer have to chase the roosters, and frighten all the other chickens in doing so. I would shoot them.

Anticipating Mother's objections to cooking and serving a chicken that had been scarred by a bullet tearing through its body, I assured her I would always shoot it through the head, and thus make only a neat hole in a part she did not cook anyway. Sensing she was not fully convinced of my accuracy in shooting, I vowed that I would aim very carefully before pulling the trigger.

I carefully removed my new rifle from its resting place on two nails driven into the kitchen wall, put five or six cartridges in my pocket, and strode confidently into the barnyard where the chickens spent most of their time. We did not have a fenced yard for our chickens.
I quickly spotted two young roosters of the right size, and maneuvered myself into position where I could fire at one and not hit any other chickens or other farm animals. As long as I remained a certain distance away the roosters seemed rather curious, looking at me first with one eye and then with the other, and moving their heads up and down, looking and eating at the same time as they do. I picked out one rooster, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. The sharp crack of the gun caused a fluttering and squawking among all the chickens, including the one I had aimed at. It remained standing. I re-loaded the gun, again took careful aim, and again the results were the same. I decided the problem was that the rooster was not cooperating; it was moving its head up and down too much, and what was stationary when I aimed, was in motion when I pulled the trigger.
Nevertheless, I kept re-loading, aiming, and firing until I was soon out of shells. But the rooster was still standing.

And my pride was becoming involved. I was determined that the roosters would die a quick, clean death. So I went back to the kitchen for more shells, trying not to draw the attention of my mother, while at the same time making reassuring noises about how I would soon have the roosters ready for her. I put at least twice as many shells in my pocket as I had before.

When I returned to the barnyard, I quickly spotted the same rooster I had been after. It seemed little disturbed by my firing. Again I maneuvered into a proper position in relation to the other buildings and animals. Again I aimed, pulled the trigger, and again I saw the rooster standing unflustered. It was obviously becoming accustomed to the explosion from the gun. Its head moved whenever I fired, and the bullet went harmlessly into the ground. I was becoming increasingly embarrassed. I tried again and again. Very soon all my shells were gone, but the two roosters were still very much alive, bobbing their heads up and down as usual.

A third trip to the kitchen was unavoidable. But this time I made certain my mother would not see me. I didn't want to do any explaining. I hastily put an entire handful of shells in my pocket, and returned quickly to the barnyard.

Perhaps the roosters got tired of moving their heads, or were no longer curious about what I was doing, or perhaps I became a better shot with practise. At any rate, two bullets finally struck home. I doused the two birds in the bucket of hot water, plucked their feathers, and gave the carcasses to my mother. I acknowledged her gratitude for the clean kills with a mere nod of my head. The less said about my marksmanship the better, I decided. It even occurred to me that five hundred shells might not last so long after all.

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LEAVES FROM A FARM BOY'S DIARY by Eddie W. Schodt

Story Copyright 1994 Eddie W. Schodt
All Rights Reserved
Line drawings by Frederik L. Schodt
Black and white photographs printed by Misao Mizuno

http://www.jai2.com/farm3.htm
Copyright 1998, Frederik L. Schodt
Revised -- Dec/25/98