Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/97

Rh had gone snifflin' along through the corn-field, an' up that hill, an' along the gullies, and through that onearthly woods to Uncle Enoch's trap, an' we'd follered him as ef he'd had a store order fur a bar'l o' flour tied to his tail.

"Well, he didn't last long, for the dogs and the niggers, between 'em, tore that trap all to bits; and what become o' the 'possum I don't b'lieve anybody knowed, 'cept it was ole Chink and two or three uv the biggest dogs."

I here asked if 'coons were ever caught in traps.

"Certainly they is," said Martin. "I remember the time that ther' was a good many 'coons caught in traps. That was in the ole Henry Clay 'lection times. The 'coon, he was the Whig beast. He stood for Harry Clay and the hull Whig party. Ther' never was a pole-raisin', or a barbecue, or a speech meetin', or a torch-light percession, in the whole country, that they didn't want a live 'coon to be sot on a pole or somewhar whar the people could look at him an' be encouraged. But it didn't do 'em no good. Ole Harry Clay he went under, an' ye couldn't sell a 'coon for a dime.

"Well, as I tell ye, this was a 'possum in a trap, and we was all pretty mad and pretty tired. We got out on the edge o' the woods as soon as we could, an' thar was a field o' corn. The corn had been planted late and the boys found a lot o' roastin' ears, though they was purty old, but we didn't care for that. We made a fire, an' roasted the corn, an' some o' the men had their 'ticklers' along,—enough to give us each a taste,—an' we lighted our pipes and sat down to