All the way home I had to hold on to his collar to keep him from jumping out and going back to the tree.
As our buggy wound its way up through the bottoms, Grandpa started talking. 'You know, Billy,' he said, 'about this tree-chopping of yours, I think it's all right. In fact, I think it would be a good thing if all young boys had to cut down a big tree like that once in their life. It does something for them. It gives them determination and will power. That's a good thing for a man to have. It goes a long way in his life. The American people have a lot of it. They have proved that, all down through history, but they could do with a lot more of it.'
I couldn't see this determination and will power that Grandpa was talking about very clearly. All I could see was a big sycamore tree, a lot of chopping, and the hide of a ringtail coon that I was determined to have.
As we reached the house, Mama came out. Right away she started checking me over. 'Are you all right?' she asked.
'Sure, Mama,' I said. 'What makes you think something's wrong with me?'
'Well, I didn't know,' she said. 'The way you acted when you got down from the buggy, I thought maybe you were hurt.'
'Aw, he's just a little sore and stiff from all that chopping,' Grandpa said, 'but he'll be all right. That'll soon go away.'
After Mama saw that there were no broken bones, or legs chopped off, she smiled and said, 'I never know any more. I guess I'll just have to get used to it.'
Papa hollered from the porch, 'Come on in. We've been waiting supper on you.'
'We're having chicken and dumplings,' Mama beamed, 'and I cooked them especially for you.'
During the meal I told Grandpa I didn't think that the coon in the big tree was the same one my dogs had been trailing at first.
'What makes you think that?' he asked.
I told how the coon had fooled us and how Little Ann had seen or heard this other coon. I figured he had just walked up on my dogs before he realized it.
A senile spread all over Grandpa's face. Chuckling, he said, 'It does look that way, but it wasn't. No, Billy, it was the same coon. They're much too smart to ever walk up on a hound like that. He pulled a trick and it was a good one. In fact, it'll fool nine out of ten dogs.'
'Well, what did he do, Grandpa?' I asked. 'I'm pretty sure he didn't cross the river, so how did he work it?'
Grandpa pushed the dishes back and, using his fork as a pencil, he drew an imaginary line on the tablecloth. 'It's called the backtracking trick,' he said. 'Here's how he worked it. He climbed that water oak but he only went up about fifteen or twenty feet. He then turned around and came down in his same tracks. He backtracked on his original trail for a way. When he heard your dogs coming he leaped far up on the side of the nearest tree and climbed up. He was in that tree all the time your dogs were searching for the lost trail. After everything had quieted down, he figured that they had given up. That's when he came down and that's when Little Ann either heard or saw him.'
Pointing the fork at me, Grandpa said very seriously, 'You mark my word, Billy, in no time at all that Little Ann will know every trick a coon can pull.'
'You know, Grandpa,' I said, 'she wouldn't bark treed at the water oak like Old Dan did.'
'Course she wouldn't,' he said. 'She knew he wasn't there.'
'Why, I never heard of such a thing,' Mama said. 'I'd no idea coons were that smart. Why, for all anyone knows he may not be in the big tree at all. Maybe he pulled another trick. It'd be a shame if Billy cut it down and found there was no coon in it.'
'Oh, he's there, Mama,' I hastily replied. 'I know he is. They were right on his tail when he went up. Besides, Little Ann was bawling her head off when I came to them.'
'Of course he's there,' Grandpa said. 'They were crowding him too closely. He didn't have time to pull another trick.'
Grandpa left soon after supper, saying to me, 'I'll be back down in a few days and I want to see that coon hide.'
I thanked him for helping me and walked out to the buggy with him.
