MAPLE CREEK MEMORIES XXII
UP THE BRANCH
Part VI
Back when I was in grade school, it was located on the hard road a little more than a quarter mile north of the hollow road. And most years while I went to that school, we had tinder dry summers followed by the hills burning . Some said that people lit the fires. And they probably did. The state or county would pay five cents an hour for folks to fight those fires. Admittedly not much, but more than the nothing some of these people got while sitting on their backsides doing nothing. So we always suspected that the people who lit the fires were the very same as those who were first to volunteer to fight them. We had a pretty good basis. The fires were always close to the residences of the firefighters and were recurrent from year to year. It was not unusual for the same patch of hillside to burn two or three times within a month or so.
There was one year, I think I was in the fourth or fifth grade then, that the hill across the hard road from the school was on fire at least five times in the space of a month or so. This, in and of itself, would have been strange. But even stranger was the fact that there were no homes located anywhere near where these fires started. The start of the fires was near the top of the hill. The hill itself was one that started near the Forks and went all the way over the ridge to near the cemetery, a distance of about three or four miles. How fires could start in the middle of the top of the hill would need to be explained by someone else. I can't. You might say that it was fox or coon hunters, but these fires started in the middle of the day, long after any such hunters would have gone home for the day. Just a mystery, like a lot of things that occur and those responsible keep their mouths closed.
And speaking of hunting, we all liked to hunt when we were kids. Squirrel hunting was the favorite kind of hunting, although we did rabbit hunt, grouse and quail hunt, too. But we all looked forward to the second Saturday in October because that was when squirrel season began. It didn't end until mid-January but the prime hunting, after the season officially started, was up until Thanksgiving. After that it was rabbits. Many of the young bucks went out after squirrels before the season started, including my oldest brother, but most waited until it was legal. Of course, you know when the very best time to hunt squirrels is--when the horse weeds bloom, around the end of August to late September. Usually by the start of the legal season, some of the guys had fifteen to thirty tails already--they had to be careful who they bragged to, though, word might get back to the game wardens.
Being kids with not a whole lot to keep us busy after we got the wood in for the winter and got rid of the strawberries in the late spring, and since baseball only took a couple of days a week, we decided to get ready for the season's hunting by clearing the paths in the woods that we would use that fall. We made regular maintenance trips to keep the paths clear each week. The paths were cleared to a pretty much uniform width of two feet and we didn't stop with just the floor of the woods. Oh no, we also clipped branches off that we thought might impinge upon our silent movements.
After these major improvements, we were sure we would reap a large harvest of squirrels. Well, to tell the truth--if you went hunting in the morning, you were in the woods and seated before daybreak, so you didn't need to have those clean paths. If it was damp, again, you didn't need clean paths. Only in the dry daytime or in case you hunted while walking--we did not, usually--were the cleaned paths of much use. The idea was great and kept us occupied , with the persistence known only to kids, for a number of years anyway.
The first time I hunted with a gun, I was about eleven years old. We got up early and went back behind Bub's place on the hill across the road from where we lived. We went over the hill of course, much safer and much shorter than walking down the road and up the branch, then up the hill in the middle of the night past the dogs and landowners with guns. I positioned myself about ten or twelve feet uphill from the path that traversed the break of the hill. Just in front of me, on the downhill side of the path, was a sapling of perhaps eight inches in thickness, with an old rusty fence of barbed wire attached to it. Where the top strand of wire was attached, there was an enlargement of the bole, probably caused by the attachment of the wire a long time ago. It was circular and about a foot or so in diameter.
I was using a .22 single shot rifle with long rifle hollow points for ammunition. We had borrowed the rifle from a friend as we only had three guns in the house and my brothers were using them. I had shot a rifle probably fifteen or twenty times before and really had no idea whether I could hit a squirrel with a shot or not.
About an hour after daybreak, a squirrel came up the hill and perched on the sapling, astraddle of the enlargement. I raised the rifle to position, aimed and pulled on the trigger. Nothing happened. It took me a few seconds to remember--the safety was on. he squirrel remained quiet on the tree, waiting on me I suppose. Silently I removed the safety and then re-aimed. I couldn't keep the gun steady. Buck fever at its' shaking worst. Hands and body shaking, teeth chattering--just a mess. I breathed in and out heavily two or three times and the shakes were gone. I re-aimed and fired. Nothing happened, the squirrel just stayed there, didn't twitch, didn't fall off, didn't do anything. Just sat there as it was before.
Well, nothing to do but do it over. Up with the gun after reloading, aim and fire. Okay. Nothing happening again. What is going on here? I aimed for the head and I didn't see any wood chipped away. Could I have missed the entire tree? Am I that bad a shot? Once more, up with the gun, reload, aim well and shoot. Still no action by the squirrel.
Only one thing to do now. I got up as slowly as I could. Walked slowly as I could. I poked the squirrel with the barrel of the rifle. Nothing. But I can see the bullets have hit one on top of the other right through the head of the squirrel and the last one is shining in the sunlight lodged in the head. I pulled the squirrel by the tail and it came loose. I carried it back to my spot, sat down, laid the squirrel beside me and waited for my brothers to finish their hunt, because I was finished. I couldn't possibly feel any better than I did sitting there that warm morning with a squirrel by my side. One morning on the hunt, one tail for me.
(Insert Bombs Away here)
Part VI
Back when I was in grade school, it was located on the hard road a little more than a quarter mile north of the hollow road. And most years while I went to that school, we had tinder dry summers followed by the hills burning . Some said that people lit the fires. And they probably did. The state or county would pay five cents an hour for folks to fight those fires. Admittedly not much, but more than the nothing some of these people got while sitting on their backsides doing nothing. So we always suspected that the people who lit the fires were the very same as those who were first to volunteer to fight them. We had a pretty good basis. The fires were always close to the residences of the firefighters and were recurrent from year to year. It was not unusual for the same patch of hillside to burn two or three times within a month or so.
There was one year, I think I was in the fourth or fifth grade then, that the hill across the hard road from the school was on fire at least five times in the space of a month or so. This, in and of itself, would have been strange. But even stranger was the fact that there were no homes located anywhere near where these fires started. The start of the fires was near the top of the hill. The hill itself was one that started near the Forks and went all the way over the ridge to near the cemetery, a distance of about three or four miles. How fires could start in the middle of the top of the hill would need to be explained by someone else. I can't. You might say that it was fox or coon hunters, but these fires started in the middle of the day, long after any such hunters would have gone home for the day. Just a mystery, like a lot of things that occur and those responsible keep their mouths closed.
And speaking of hunting, we all liked to hunt when we were kids. Squirrel hunting was the favorite kind of hunting, although we did rabbit hunt, grouse and quail hunt, too. But we all looked forward to the second Saturday in October because that was when squirrel season began. It didn't end until mid-January but the prime hunting, after the season officially started, was up until Thanksgiving. After that it was rabbits. Many of the young bucks went out after squirrels before the season started, including my oldest brother, but most waited until it was legal. Of course, you know when the very best time to hunt squirrels is--when the horse weeds bloom, around the end of August to late September. Usually by the start of the legal season, some of the guys had fifteen to thirty tails already--they had to be careful who they bragged to, though, word might get back to the game wardens.
Being kids with not a whole lot to keep us busy after we got the wood in for the winter and got rid of the strawberries in the late spring, and since baseball only took a couple of days a week, we decided to get ready for the season's hunting by clearing the paths in the woods that we would use that fall. We made regular maintenance trips to keep the paths clear each week. The paths were cleared to a pretty much uniform width of two feet and we didn't stop with just the floor of the woods. Oh no, we also clipped branches off that we thought might impinge upon our silent movements.
After these major improvements, we were sure we would reap a large harvest of squirrels. Well, to tell the truth--if you went hunting in the morning, you were in the woods and seated before daybreak, so you didn't need to have those clean paths. If it was damp, again, you didn't need clean paths. Only in the dry daytime or in case you hunted while walking--we did not, usually--were the cleaned paths of much use. The idea was great and kept us occupied , with the persistence known only to kids, for a number of years anyway.
The first time I hunted with a gun, I was about eleven years old. We got up early and went back behind Bub's place on the hill across the road from where we lived. We went over the hill of course, much safer and much shorter than walking down the road and up the branch, then up the hill in the middle of the night past the dogs and landowners with guns. I positioned myself about ten or twelve feet uphill from the path that traversed the break of the hill. Just in front of me, on the downhill side of the path, was a sapling of perhaps eight inches in thickness, with an old rusty fence of barbed wire attached to it. Where the top strand of wire was attached, there was an enlargement of the bole, probably caused by the attachment of the wire a long time ago. It was circular and about a foot or so in diameter.
I was using a .22 single shot rifle with long rifle hollow points for ammunition. We had borrowed the rifle from a friend as we only had three guns in the house and my brothers were using them. I had shot a rifle probably fifteen or twenty times before and really had no idea whether I could hit a squirrel with a shot or not.
About an hour after daybreak, a squirrel came up the hill and perched on the sapling, astraddle of the enlargement. I raised the rifle to position, aimed and pulled on the trigger. Nothing happened. It took me a few seconds to remember--the safety was on. he squirrel remained quiet on the tree, waiting on me I suppose. Silently I removed the safety and then re-aimed. I couldn't keep the gun steady. Buck fever at its' shaking worst. Hands and body shaking, teeth chattering--just a mess. I breathed in and out heavily two or three times and the shakes were gone. I re-aimed and fired. Nothing happened, the squirrel just stayed there, didn't twitch, didn't fall off, didn't do anything. Just sat there as it was before.
Well, nothing to do but do it over. Up with the gun after reloading, aim and fire. Okay. Nothing happening again. What is going on here? I aimed for the head and I didn't see any wood chipped away. Could I have missed the entire tree? Am I that bad a shot? Once more, up with the gun, reload, aim well and shoot. Still no action by the squirrel.
Only one thing to do now. I got up as slowly as I could. Walked slowly as I could. I poked the squirrel with the barrel of the rifle. Nothing. But I can see the bullets have hit one on top of the other right through the head of the squirrel and the last one is shining in the sunlight lodged in the head. I pulled the squirrel by the tail and it came loose. I carried it back to my spot, sat down, laid the squirrel beside me and waited for my brothers to finish their hunt, because I was finished. I couldn't possibly feel any better than I did sitting there that warm morning with a squirrel by my side. One morning on the hunt, one tail for me.
(Insert Bombs Away here)
posted by tanstaafl | 7:02 AM
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