'Well, in that case,' Grandpa said, 'we'd better put our man along about here.'
'What man, Grandpa?' I asked in surprise.
'The one we're going to make,' he said. 'To us it'll be a scarecrow, but to that coon it'll be a man.'
Knowing too well how smart coons were, right away I began to lose confidence. 'I don't see how anything like that can keep a. coon in a tree,' I said.
'It'll keep him there all right,' Grandpa said. 'Like I told you before, they're curious little devils. Hell poke his head out of that hole, see this man standing here, and he won't dare come down. It'll take him four or five days to figure out that it isn't a real honest-to-goodness man. By that time it'll be too late. You'll have his hide tacked on the smokehouse wall.'
The more I thought about it, the more I believed it, and then there was that serious look on Grandpa's face. That was all it took. I was firmly convinced.
I started laughing. The more I thought about it, the funnier it got. Great big laughing tears rolled down my cheek.
'What's so funny?' Grandpa asked. 'Don't you believe it'll work?'
'Sure it'll work, Grandpa,' I said. 'I know it will.
I was just thinking-those coons aren't half as smart as they think they are, are they?'
We both had a good laugh at this.
With the sticks and some bailing wire, Grandpa made a frame that looked almost like a gingerbread man. On this he put an old pair of pants and a red sweater. We stuffed the loose flabby clothes with grass and leaves. He wired the stocking-cap head in place and stepped back to inspect his work.
'Well, what do you think of it?' he asked.
'If it had a face,' I said, 'you couldn't tell it from a real man.'
'We can fix that,' Grandpa chuckled.
He took a stick and dug some black grease from one of the hub caps on the buggy. I stood and watched while he applied his artistic touch. In the stocking-cap head he made two mean-looking eyes, a crooked nose, and the ugliest mouth I had ever seen.
'Well, what do you think of that?' he asked. 'Looks pretty good, huh?'
Laughing fit to kill, and talking all at the same time, I told him that I wouldn't blame the coon if he stayed in the tree until Gabriel blew his horn.
'He won't stay that long,' Grandpa chuckled, 'but he'll stay long enough for you to cut that tree down.'
'That's all I want,' I said.
'We'd better be going,' Grandpa said. 'It's getting late and we don't want to miss that supper.'
I was so stiff and sore he had to help me to the buggy seat.
I called to my dogs. Little Ann came, but not willingly. Old Dan refused to leave the tree.
'Come on, boy,' I coaxed. 'Let's go home and get something to eat. We'll come back tomorrow.'
He bowed his head and looked the other way.
'Come on,' I scolded, 'we can't sit here all night.'
This hurt his feelings. He walked around behind the big sycamore and hid.
'Well, I'll be darned,' Grandpa said as he jumped down from the buggy. 'He knows that coon's there and he doesn't want to leave it. You've got a coon hound there and I mean a good one.'
He picked Old Dan up in his arms and set him in the buggy.
