Altogether, I'm some
busy as you-all may well infer.
"'One night I'm coon huntin'. The dogs trees over on Rapid Run. When
I arrives, the whole pack is cirkled 'round the base of a big beech,
singin'; my old Andrew Jackson dog leadin' the choir with the air,
an' my Thomas Benton dog growlin' bass, while the others warbles
what parts they will, indiscrim'nate.
"'Nacherally, the dogs can't climb the tree none, an' I has to make
that play myse'f. I lays down my gun, an' shucks my belts an' knife,
an' goes swarmin' up the beech. It's shorely a teedious enterprise,
an' some rough besides. That beech seems as full of spikes an'
thorns as a honey locust--its a sort o' porkypine of a tree.
"'Which I works my lacerated way into the lower branches, an' then,
glances up ag'in the firmaments to locate the coon. He ain't vis'ble
none; he's higher up an' the leaves an' bresh hides him. I goes on
till I'm twenty foot from the ground; then I looks up ag'in,
"'Gents, it ain't no coon; it's a b'ar, black as paint an' as big as
a baggage wagon. He ain't two foot above me too; an' the sight of
him, settin' thar like a black bale of cotton, an' his nearness, an'
partic'larly a few terse remarks he lets drop, comes mighty clost to
astonishin' me to death.
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