Meph, the Pet Skunk (American Woodland Tales) Read online

  Young Meph believed the silo pit and the boy to be parts of the normal course of a skunk’s life. He had no desire to be free, for he did not know but what the move from the earthen den to the summer kitchen, to the silo pit was as it should be. He became attached to the boy who brought him food. He would bounce out of the barrel when he heard his footsteps and garble and chortle at him as he approached with a handful of grasshoppers and a pocketful of mice. He changed easily from a nocturnal animal to a diurnal animal to fit into Sycamore’s daylight life. He even came to enjoy the odor of the boy’s hands on his food and liked to romp and play with him when Sycamore cautiously crawled into the pit.

  The boy’s laugh excited him, and he would prance and box Sycamore’s hands; even throw up his beautiful tail for him. He knew now that he could even throw his spume; but he had no desire to do so. Occasionally he would go to the field in Sycamore’s pocket, where he would bite and chew at the threads in the pants as he bounced with the boy and the tractor. Meph did not feel the pains of hunger these days, and he grew happier and more playful as he gained weight.

  By the end of the week he was truly dependent on Sycamore. He had transferred some of his love from his mother to this new food-getter in his life and he expressed it by nosing and licking the soft white hand. His mother tried to teach him to be cautious of the boy, but this was too hard to teach and too unreasonable to learn. She gave up and joined him in the race for the mice and berries that were placed in the pit. He fought with her for the food, but this did not disturb the mother, for it was as it should be. He was weaned now and learning to make his way on his own.

  As Saturday afternoon drew closer, Sycamore found he was not as eager to see Sam as usual. For one thing he had not robbed the bank, and for another he was not very enthusiastic about going to Arizona. Perhaps if he showed Meph to Sam, he, too, would realize that they might better stay here and feed the skunks.

  At three-thirty on Saturday, Sycamore put Meph in his shirt and started for the bridge by the creek route. He was tired as he strode along the stream bank, for the day was hot, and he had worked steadily all week helping his father to cut the hay, rake it, load it, and store it in the barn. It was all done now, all the heavy lifting and tossing, but Sycamore still felt it in his sore arms and back. He could rest now, however, for it would be a few days before the wheat would be ready to cut.

  Meph circled around and around in the sagging shirt, trying to find a cool spot where he could sleep. Finally he thrust his sharp black head through the front of the shirt and looked out. The trees jogged up and down as he rode. He smelled the fishy waters of the creek and listened to the myriad cicadas singing in the dry bushes. His black fur absorbed the hot sunlight, and he pulled his head back into the odorous shirt. An indigo bunting flew away from her nest as the two passed, and a muskrat, searching the stream bed for roots, swam off into the shadow of the brush.

  Sycamore climbed to the top of the bridge and waited for Sam. He saw him coming presently, swinging a rope as he came, and whistling the bars of a cowboy song. He ran up the iron incline, only touching with his hands twice. Sycamore, upon seeing this was filled with admiration again. Sam was a real guy, he did everything well.

  “I didn’t get out of haying,” Sycamore said as Sam gave a little flip and sat down beside him.

  “You all start?” Sam asked.

  “Finished.”

  “Well, what about the money?” Sam asked eagerly. “Hey, whatcha got in your shirt?”

  Sycamore unbuttoned it and Meph thrust his head out, blinked in the sunlight, and withdrew.

  “A skunk!” Sam exclaimed. “Will he spray? Can I touch him?”

  “No, he’s friendly. He won’t spray,” Sycamore said as he pulled him out and handed him to his friend.

  Sam turned him over and over examining the feet that kicked in the air and the handsome tail that swished up and down.

  “You’d better let him go,” he said finally. “I don’t think he fits into our plans. He’s pretty cute, though, isn’t he?”

  “Sure, and he’s real nice, too,” added Sycamore. “Maybe we could take him along as a mascot.” Sam thought a moment, then his face brightened.

  “Say, that’s a swell idea. I’ll ask my friend who’s driving. You know, he can’t leave this week end; he said he couldn’t get away until next week, so that still gives you time to round up the money.”

  Sycamore was so pleased that Sam liked Meph and would take him along, that he found himself making plans for the trip again.

  “I tell you what,” he said to Sam in a low voice, “I’ve been making plans for us to rob the bank in town and. …”

  “That’s out! Too much publicity. We don’t want cops trailing us. Can’t you think of any other way?” Sycamore was disappointed and a little frightened, for the only thing that came to mind was the jar of egg money.

  “Gee, no,” he finally said.

  “Well, you’re not much of a guy, is all I can say,” said Sam. “Maybe you don’t want to go. Maybe you want to be a peasant all your life, and stack hay; and be meek.”

  “No I don’t, honest, Sam.”

  “Well then, find the money. We gotta have it by next week end.”

  The boys climbed off the bridge structure, and started through the woodland meadow catching grasshoppers which they fed Meph until he could hardly open his mouth for more.

  It was suppertime when Sycamore dropped Meph in the silo pit with his mother and went to the house to eat. The minute he opened the door, he knew something was wrong. His father was sitting over the accounts too early, and his mother had not started supper.

  “We just can’t, Seed,” she was saying. “It’s our home, we’ve lived here all our lives. The living’s hard, but it’s good work, and we will always have the land.”

  “I’ve made up my mind, Molly,” Seed said. “I’ve been talking to a man from the city today, and he’ll give me a good price for it, more than it’s worth, I guess.”

  “What’s the matter?” Sycamore asked in a frightened voice.

  “We’re selling the farm!” Seed shouted. “Selling it and getting out of farming for good. That pleases you, doesn’t it? You’re always saying the work’s too hard.”

  The boy didn’t say anything. He was truly shocked, for although his father often spoke this way, he knew he meant it this time.

  “The land just can’t support us. One hundred and forty-five acres, and we can’t make enough off it to keep our cattle going. Didn’t used to be this way. Why, I can remember when my father got two tons of hay an acre off these fields, and he didn’t do anything to them at all. Just broadcast a few seeds now and then.”

  Sycamore could not talk. He waited while his mother heated over the noon scraps, then he ate hastily and listened. His mother and father were still talking long after the meal was finished. Sycamore got up from the table and walked quietly and miserably toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” his father shouted.

  “To feed the mother skunk.”

  “Sycamore, I want you to turn them loose. You’re wasting time hunting down mice and crickets for those varmints.”

  Sycamore Will closed the door quietly and walked out into the summer evening. Suddenly he didn’t want to leave the farm, it was his home. He’d never known anything else. It was one thing for him to run away and leave it, but for his mother and father to go, that was all wrong. He walked to the silo pit, put a pan of milk down for the mother skunk and picked up little Meph. Slowly he carried him up the lane. The many rains and the grinding wheels of countless wagons had worn the lane far below the fields. It was stony and bare like a creek bed. The boy ambled back to the woods and put Meph down in the leaves. He sat down. Meph played around his feet, occasionally wandering off a short distance to dig the soft earth at the foot of an oak tree. He would return to nip the boy’s hand and to play with him. But Sycamore did not want to play.

  THE WOODS

  IT WAS A WARM evening
late in July. Meph stretched in the shadow of the pit, panting in the heat. The flies from the barn buzzed around his head and he snapped at them from time to time. Sycamore had not been to the pit since early morning when he had dropped two mice and a handful of berries to the skunks. Meph had listened to the swish of the binder in the north oats field all day, and felt lonely and bored. At five o’clock there were sounds of the man and the boy in the barn, and presently Sycamore appeared at the top of the pit and presented the stiff body of a little pheasant chick to the skunk.

  “Pa wouldn’t let me catch anything,” he said. “He told me I had to finish cutting the oats first. The cutter bar killed this little chick. Here you can have it.” Meph sniffed the bird and took it gently in his new big teeth. His milk teeth had fallen out during the last few weeks and the firmly anchored permanent ones had replaced them. He carried the bird into a corner and set upon it. The odor awoke his mother and she joined him to fight for a tasty leg. They did not finish it, for they were not very hungry. They returned to the nail keg and fell asleep.

  It was almost dark when Meph was awakened by a step at the edge of the pit. He ran out of the den to see Seed standing above him. He blinked at the man and turned to go back into the den when a board almost touched him. Meph sniffed it, smelled the termites at work on the damp underside, and proceeded to pick them out with his claws.

  His mother, also awakened by the noise, came over to see what her kit was doing. She walked up the board a few feet, sniffing the frantic insects that were now taking their brood in their jaws and running for cover. Slowly she walked along the board, climbing higher and higher as she went. Then she smelled the blue grass at the rim of the silo pit and realized she was looking across the barnyard. The smell of new scents just beyond her kept her moving forward. She looked back once to see Meph following her across the yard. He came toward her then turned and ambled toward the pig pen. He was tracking a Norway rat. He wedged under the weathered fence boards into the pen and stalked leisurely across the muddy wallow. Head down, tail outstretched, he plodded along the rat trail to the base of the hog house. There he dug at the strong smelling boards.

  The mother sniffed her way across the barnyard toward the bull who was quietly chewing his cud in the dark. He smelled her, started in surprise, and thundered off to the far corner of the barnyard. The mother skunk looked toward the great animal, sensed he was afraid of her, and went back to sniffing the mud that was chopped and gutted with hoof prints. She walked to the rail fence, slipped under it, and wandered slowly down the embankment toward the road. She came out of the raspberry bushes onto the macadam and walked casually toward the stone house. A car sped around the corner and zinged by her. She moved on toward it without slowing her pace. The gust of air from the speeding vehicle made her perk her head, but other than that she paid no attention to the automobile.

  In the front yard she sniffed and dug at the grass then turned east and followed the gully down the hill to the Yellow Breeches Creek. By the fallen sycamore she lifted her nose to smell better the odor of the skunk family of the fence row. The four kits were crossing the fallen tree behind their mother. They were scrawny and lice ridden. Meph’s mother turned away from them and wandered into the dense thicket of young Norway maples, where she remembered a rotted stump of wild cherry. Here she routed out a stag beetle whose large mandibles looked like the antlers of a deer. She dug further to find the curved whitish larvae of this beetle.

  Meph scratched at the hog house for several minutes, then turned away in boredom and went toward the barn to look for Sycamore. He followed his trail across the barnyard, past the milk house and down the lane to the road. On the macadam of the road he lost the scent and wandered up and down searching for it. Occasionally his claws would pop a tar bubble, still warm and sticky from the sun. He backed up when this happened and sniffed as he searched for the source of the pop. Gradually he worked across to the far edge of the road where he found Sycamore’s trail again and followed it down the walk to the porch. The trail ended at the door. Meph stamped his feet and scolded, but the voices from within were louder than his own noise and he sat down to wait.

  A car stopped at the end of the walk and a woman got out. She came toward the house carrying two egg boxes under her arm. She walked swiftly, head down. Meph, hearing the click of her shoes, came forward to meet her. She looked up, saw the black and white animal by the window light and stopped.

  “Oh,” she cried and backed up. Meph, glad for company ran to her feet. She stepped backward more quickly, turned and ran. Meph ran too, waddling and buckling as he chased her down the walk. With a cry she sprang into her automobile and slammed the door. Meph sat down and breathed in her scent that was heavy around the car. The woman remained motionless waiting for Meph to leave. He was not so easily eluded. He had lots of time, was not hungry, and desired companionship. He stretched out on the walk sniffing now and then to make sure she was still near and waited for her to come and play. The woman called:

  “Go, away! go away!” Meph was accustomed to the strange human voice and listened patiently. Finally he heard a roaring whirr and the car moved jerkily off. The woman stopped at the next farmhouse for eggs.

  Meph watched her leave, got up and ambled across the yard. He stopped as he heard the Japanese beetles scratching in the flower garden. He knocked some down, ate them, and wandered on. As he crossed the yard he noted the breeze off the stream. It was laden with the acrid odor of man. Meph no longer found this scent unpleasant, and in small doses rather liked it. He hurried down the hill to the stream bank.

  A twilight fisherman, tall, lean, and intent, was casting his line into the still pool below the fallen sycamore. A large pickerel lived under the water shadow of the tree, and the fisherman was bound that this would be the evening that he would have it. He cast perfectly: the spinner hit just above the trickling water, was caught in the current, and rode down through the pool where the pickerel lay. He watched tensely. Something touched his foot, and he pushed it away without giving it much thought. It was warm and furry like a cat. It persisted, however, and he looked down. For a moment he stood breathless as he stared at the black and white stripes that ran down Meph’s sides. The big pickerel was forgotten as he stepped gently back and back. He backed through the margin of hawthorn trees.

  “Nice fellow, nice kitty, nice fellow,” he said. He wound in his line as he retreated, talking gently to Meph who was giving him cold chills each time he ran up to him and stamped the ground before him. Suddenly the fisherman stumbled and Meph jumped. He threw up his tail and turned it toward the man. With that, the fisherman burst into a run, clattered and banged through the sharp hawthorn needles, and climbed the bank to the road. As Meph watched him go his tail slowly dropped. He sniffed the ground and moved on. He had believed man to be the one creature that was his friend, but the evening had not borne this out.

  Night came rapidly after the sun slipped below the mountains, and the young skunk was far down the creek when he thought of Sycamore again. He turned to go back to the house when he heard a noise in the Jimson weed, and lowered his head to take the scent. The skunk of the wooded knoll came stamping and snapping down his hill. He was big and bony and his eyes shone brightly in his black face. Meph saw that he was irate. He stopped and waited. The big animal came on, his lips pulled back from his teeth. He was wheezing and coughing as if it were hard for him to breathe; but this did not dampen his rage. Meph moved away quietly aware that he was trespassing on the wooded knoll, and that this space belonged to this old, but sickly animal. Meph left quickly, crossed the dry eroded ditch, and went galloping down the stream bank. The big skunk stopped at the edge of the sumac growth and pummeled the ground furiously. He was now so winded that he could no longer chase the younger Meph, for lung worms, taken in with the crayfish he had eaten, infested his chest, and his strength and stamina were limited. He created a great noise, for the little wooded knoll was all the land that he had. Other skunks stronger and more vigoro
us than he, had pushed him back to this almost foodless area, but this he could defend.

  Meph ran back up the stream and crossed the creek on the fallen sycamore log. He ambled down the far side of the waterway. He took the open game trails, for he had no fear of the night and the creatures that lurked within its shadows waiting to kill or be killed. He was the unwanted, the loneliest animal of the forest.

  As he strode along, he became aware of a soft swish of wind in the elms above him. It was the older barn owl, hunting late hours along the stream, trying desperately to get enough to eat. He watched Meph pass in regal splendor, tail flowing behind like a train. Several times he spread his wings to drop and make the strike, but always changed his mind. As Meph moved along the stream, so he moved from tree to tree above him. He must eat, even if it must be skunk. The year before, the Cumberland Valley farms in this area were overrun with mice; and the barn owls, the sparrow hawks, the red-shouldered hawks, foxes, and weasels had lived almost entirely on them. During the winter other predators moved in to check further their populations, but still the numbers were great and eventually the mice ate themselves out of house and home. Without shelter and food they quickly perished. However, this was the owl’s home and it didn’t occur to him to leave it. He was already raising his family when the mice suddenly disappeared. He had to eat what he could get; and so he studied Meph. The other predators also were faced with this problem. They turned to rabbits, but there were not enough and those that remained were too difficult to catch. Some ate snakes, salamanders, and frogs that dwelt along the wooded stream bank. All fed where best they could. Meph did not know how thin these wild warriors were and how scant their rations. Many young had not survived. Meph had been fed generously and was sleek and beautiful. The barn owl watched him stop and study a pair of tumblebugs that were making their way through the grass. They were pushing and pulling a ball of dung between them, climbing over sticks and stones as if in great haste to get it far from any insect thief. Meph sniffed them and backed up as they passed. The owl watched Meph. Suddenly he made up his mind. He dipped and flew off. He was not that hungry.