I offer you this short story as a prelude to Thanksgiving week. Enjoy.
The Old Man was no stranger to adversity. The townsfolk, who occasionally noticed him when he came to town for supplies, called him a hermit. It was rumored that he had left his position as a college professor after a dispute over academic freedom. The Old Man lived in a simple cabin in a remote location in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. He had inherited the property from his “Papaw”.
The Old Man had never married but he had one sister much younger than he. The sister lived in town and had a young son; they were the Old Man’s only relatives. The boy had seen the Old Man only a few times, usually at Thanksgiving, when the Old Man sometimes accepted an invitation to dinner from his sister.
A week before Thanksgiving of this particular year, a letter came to the Old Man from his sister stating that she had "an emergency" that required her to be out of town and requesting that the boy stay with the Old Man for a few days over the Thanksgiving weekend. The Old Man reluctantly agreed.
On the frosty morning of the boy’s arrival, the Old Man sat on his porch sipping chicory coffee and contemplating how he might engage with his nephew. Along came a brown squirrel that he had often seen in the large walnut tree that stood about twenty yards away from the house. The brown squirrel often seemed to outwit the other grey squirrels, for the Old Man had watched the brown squirrel distract other grey squirrels and then grab the walnuts they were gathering and swiftly run with them to his cavity in an old dead Beech tree. The Old Man decided it was time for his own gathering of the walnuts and the thought came to him to have the boy help him in this annual chore. The Old Man then heard the uncommon sound of the approach of an automobile.
His sister gave her brother the usual peck on the cheek and presented him with a list of instructions related to the boy. She gave the boy a long, loving hug, told him to “mind your uncle,” jumped in the car, and sped off down the road.
The boy shyly glanced up at his uncle. The Old Man began to whistle, tore up his sister’s instructions, turned to the boy and handed him a slingshot that he had whittled for him. The boy looked at the Old Man with a puzzled look. The Old Man gently took the slingshot, picked up a stone, demonstrated how to shoot the stone, and handed it back to the boy. The boy spent several hours learning to be accurate with his new weapon.
After a lunch of cheese and dried venison, the Old Man asked the boy to “fetch” a bushel basket from the woodshed. The Old Man led the boy to a big walnut tree. As they approached it, the brown squirrel scurried from behind an old chestnut stump, grabbed a walnut, ran up the walnut tree, and hurried along a series of limbs, jumping from tree to tree, “You had better move that bushy brown tail out of here,” shouted the Old Man, but the squirrel stopped, looked back, and “chuk, chuk, chuked” at the Old Man and the boy. He told the boy that the squirrel was a clever one, and then turned to gather the walnuts that had fallen to the ground. The boy was repulsed by the rotting blackish green hull, but the Old Man showed the boy that it was nothing to be concerned about and they quickly filled the basket.
The following morning was Thanksgiving Day and after a breakfast of oatmeal and ripe persimmons, the Old Man decided to take the boy around to his traps. He had caught a rabbit and he showed the boy how to skin it and prepare it for a stew that they would have for their Thanksgiving supper. The Old Man prepared a stew made from carrots, dried ramps, turnips, and the prepared rabbit. Before they ate, the Old Man offered a prayer of gratitude for the life of the rabbit and for the bounty of the vegetables.
Following the Thanksgiving meal, the Old Man and the boy heard raindrops on the metal roof, so the Old Man suggested they sit by the fireplace and learn to whittle. The Old Man presented the boy with a ivory-handled pocketknife and a stick of red cedar. He carefully demonstrated how to use the knife, and the boy reveled at his own ability to control the knife. As evening approached, the Old Man told the boy that tomorrow they would hull the walnuts and if the weather permitted, they would fish for trout on Saturday. Then he picked up a dulcimer from the corner of the cabin, played a few tunes to the delight of the boy. Before long the boy was yawning and the Old Man once again showed the boy to the cot where he would sleep. The Old Man tucked him snuggly under a quilt made from old neckties, remnants of his days as a college professor.
On Friday, the Old Man showed the boy how to separate the walnut from the outer hull. He showed him how he used the stain from the hulls to color the hides of the animals he had set aside as leather pouches and rawhide strings for the traps. As they were processing the walnuts, they heard a “chuk, chuk, chuk” and looked up to see the brown squirrel looking down from a nearby oak tree. The boy suggested they try to trap the squirrel. The Old Man showed the boy how to trap a squirrel and they used one of the walnuts as bait in the trap. That night the boy dreamed of catching the squirrel.
The next morning the boy hurried from his bed to look to see if they had caught the squirrel. Sure enough, something was in the trap. When the Old Man peeked into the hole, he saw the brown squirrel. “What do we do now?” asked the boy. “Shall we kill it?” The Old Man turned to the boy. “Do you need it for food?” “No,” replied the boy. “Do you need the skin for shoes to warm your feet?” “No,” replied the boy. “Do you want the big, beautiful, brown tail for a hat?” The boy hesitated, rolled his eyes, and then slowly replied, “No.” Then we will not take his life. “Set him free!” The boy opened the door of the trap and the brown squirrel rushed out of the trap and scampered up the nearest tree. When he reached the top of the tree, he stopped, turned back to the Old Man and the boy, and “chuk, chuk, … chuk, chuk, chukked.” The Old Man looked at the boy and together they began to laugh back at the brown squirrel. “Ha, Ha, …Ha, Ha, Ha to you too!” The boy thanked his uncle for the lesson he had just learned. The Old Man smiled down at the boy, patted him on the head, and said, “How about we see if the trout are biting?”
Happy Thanksgiving!
CPW
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