The Grasshopper Trap Page 8

  Canary in a Cage—This is a safety device to be employed in any tent or cabin occupied by more than two hunters after the third day of a hunt. When the canary topples from its perch and strikes a bell, the alarm warns hunters that the air has become lethal. The canary can also be used to test individual hunters as they enter the shelter. Merely sweep the cage over the subject, much as you would use a Geiger counter in checking radiation levels. If the canary wobbles on its perch, coughs, or chokes, the offending individual should be forced to sleep outside. Replacement canaries are available for $29.95.

  The Complete Float Tube—As you know, the standard float tube requires that you paddle it about with rubber flippers on your feet. The Complete Float Tube, however, is equipped with a one-horse outboard motor. But, you ask, won’t your feet get caught in the prop? After my product tester, Fred “Stubby” Phipps, complained about just that very problem, we enclosed the prop in a wire-mesh cage, which solved the difficulty. The CPT also comes with a sail. So far we have had only one opportunity to test the sail, and that was on Puget Sound during a nasty storm. The only problem we detected with the sail was that it hung up on the mast, preventing its being lowered. I will get that little bug worked out as soon as Stubby returns. He was last seen off the Aleutian Islands doing about twenty knots, which isn’t bad for a float tube.

  Sleeping-Bag Shucker—Every outdoorsman knows how difficult it is to shuck his companions out of their sleeping bags on cold mornings, particularly when it is their turn to build the fire. The Shucker can now take over this difficult chore. It consists of a large inflatable bear, which you blow up and place next to your companion after he has gone to sleep. The next morning, all you need do is yell “Bear in tent!” to shuck the person out of his sleeping bag. This obviously is a great improvement over my previous design for a sleeping-bag shucker, which required you to get up, insert the bottom of your companion’s bag between the rollers, and crank it through.

  Anti-Purist Fly Box—Here is the perfect gift for you if you must associate with fly-fishing purists. It appears to be a standard fly box, but when a secret button is pressed, a panel slides open to reveal a matched set of night crawlers.

  Well, that’s enough Christmas delights to tantalize you with. Now, I have to go clean the basement. I love cleaning the basement. Before my wife found out how to work the Automatic Fish Cleaner and Scaler, I didn’t care that much for cleaning the basement. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmmm.

  The Hunting Lesson

  Over the years it has been my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce numerous persons to the sport of hunting. It is odd, however, that a man can have a thousand successes and one failure, and it will be the failure that sticks in his mind like a porky quill in a hound’s nose. Thus it is with my single failure, one Sidney Sample. Even now, five years later, I torment myself with the question of where I went wrong. How did I slip with Sample?

  The affair started off innocently enough. One fall day, with none of my regular hunting partners available for the following weekend, I strolled next door to Sidney’s house to invite him to go deer hunting with me. I found him digging up bulbs in the garden, and greeted him informally, namely by sneaking up behind him and dumping a basket of moldering leaves over his head. Not one to enjoy a good joke on himself, Sidney growled malevolently and thrust blindly at me with the garden trowel.

  “Sidney,” I said, holding him at bay with a rake handle, “I am about to give you the opportunity of a lifetime. How would you like to go deer hunting with me?”

  “Not much,” he replied, fingering leaf mold from his ears. “In fact, my desire to go hunting with you is so slight as to escape detection by modern science!”

  “Don’t like hunting, huh?” I said. “Well, many people who have never been exposed to the sport feel that way about it. Listen, I can teach you all about hunting. One weekend out with me, and you’ll come back loving it.”

  “No,” Sidney snarled.

  “If nothing else, you’ll enjoy getting out in the crisp mountain air. It will invigorate you.”

  “No! No! NO!”

  “Sid, I just know you’ll enjoy the camaraderie of the hunting camp, the thrill of the pursuit, the …”

  “No, I tell you, no! Go home!”

  “ … the free meat and …”

  “Free meat?”

  “Sure. Just think of packing away all those free venison steaks and chops and roasts in the freezer.”

  “Free meat. Venison’s good, too. I tasted it once. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind getting a bunch of free meat. Then, too, as you say, there’s the hunting-camp camaraderie, the crisp mountain air, and the thrill of pursuit. But I’m willing to put up with all that stuff if I can get some free meat.”

  I would have patted him on the shoulder, but I didn’t want to get my hands all dirty with leaf mold. “I can see right now you have the makings of a true sportsman,” I told him.

  “So how do I get this free deer?” Sidney asked.

  “Well, you just go out with me and get it. Of course, there are a few odds and ends you’ll need to pick up down at Duffy’s Sporting Goods.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, let’s see. You’ll need a rifle, of course. Outfitted with scope and sling. A couple boxes of shells. Seems to me there’s something else. A knife! You’ll need a good hunting knife. And a whetstone. I nearly forgot the whetstone. That should be about it. You have a good pair of insulated boots, don’t you? No? Oh, wool pants, you’ll need wool pants and some good wool socks and a wool shirt and a down parka and some thermal underwear and an orange hunting vest and a red cap. Heck, that should do it. Good, you’re making a list. Did I say gloves? Get some gloves. Oh, binoculars! And a first-aid kit. And a survival kit, with a daypack to carry it in. Rope, you’ll need a length of rope for dragging your free deer out of the mountains with. We could use my tent, of course, but it has a rip in the roof on the guest’s side. You might want to buy a tent. A subzero sleeping bag, did I mention that? You’ll probably want an insulated sleeping pad, too. Down booties are awfully nice to slip into when you take off your hunting boots, but they’re optional. Then there’s the grub, and that’s it. Did I mention the hunting license and deer tag?”

  “Hmmmm,” Sidney said, studying his list. “Just how big are these free deer, anyway?”

  “Big!” I said. “Real big!”

  “Geez,” he said, “I don’t know how I can afford to buy all the stuff on this list.”

  “Take some advice from an old experienced hunter—mortgage the house.”

  After Sidney purchased his outfit, I took him out to the gun-club range and we sighted in his rifle. He grouped his last five shots right in the center of the bull’s-eye. Then I showed him my technique of scattering shots randomly around the target because, as I explained, you never know which way the deer might jump just as you pull the trigger.

  “How long before I learn to do that?” Sidney asked.

  “Years,” I said. “It’s not something you master overnight.”

  The day before the hunt, Retch Sweeney called up and said he would be able to go hunting after all.

  “How come he’s going?” Sidney snapped when I told him the news. They are not exactly bosom buddies.

  “He’s between jobs,” I said.

  “I didn’t know he ever worked,” Sidney growled. “When did he get laid off?”

  “Nineteen fifty-seven.”

  I explained to Sidney the absolute necessity of being ready when Retch and I came to pick him up the next morning. “We’ll arrive at your house at two sharp. Got that? Two sharp!”

  “Right,” he said.

  “Don’t bother about breakfast. We can grab a quick bite at Greasy Gert’s Gas ‘n’ Grub just before we turn off the highway and head up to our hunting area. Now remember, two sharp!”

  We picked Sidney up the next morning at exactly 5:35. He was furious. Naturally, Retch and I were puzzled. Then it occurred to me that since this was Sidney’s first hunt, he didn�
��t realize that when hunters say “two sharp,” they mean “sometime around five.”

  “Stop whimpering and toss your gear in back,” Retch said. “You better not have forgot nothin’ either, because we’re not turnin’ around and comin’ back for it! Now put your rifle in the rack next to mine.”

  “What do you mean, next to yours?”

  “That ol’ .30-06 right there … Say, I wonder if you fellas would mind swingin’ by my house again. Just take a few minutes.”

  After Retch had picked up his rifle and I had returned to my house for my sleeping bag and then we had gone back to Retch’s for his shells, it was almost six-thirty by the time we got out to the highway.

  “Aren’t we going to be awfully late with all these delays?” Sidney asked. “What time will we start hunting?”

  Retch and I looked at each other and laughed. “Why, man, we’re already hunting!” Retch said. “This is it. This is what hunting’s all about.”

  We drove along for an hour, as Retch and I entertained Sidney with detailed accounts of other hunting trips. “It was a tough shot, looked impossible to me at first,” Retch was saying. “That six-point buck was going away from me at an angle and …”

  I held up my hand for silence. “Okay, now we got to get serious. We’re coming to the most dangerous part of the trip. We get through this ordeal and we should be okay. You guys watch yourselves. If you start to feel faint or queasy, Sid, let me know right away.”

  “Cripes!” Sidney said nervously. “What do we have to do, drive up a sheer cliff or something?”

  “Worse,” I said. “We’re going to eat breakfast at Greasy Gert’s.”

  Dawn had long since cracked and spilled over the mountains by the time we arrived at our hunting spot. Retch looked out the window and groaned.

  “What are you groaning for?” I asked. “I’m the one that had Gerty’s chili-pepper omelette.”

  “It’s not that,” Retch said. “I see fresh tracks in the snow all over the place. If we’d been here an hour earlier, we’d have nailed us some deer.”

  “Listen,” I said. “Did we come out to nail deer or to go hunting today? If we’re hunting, we have to get up two hours late, forget a bunch of stuff we have to go back for, and then stop for breakfast at Gerty’s. You know how it’s done.”

  “Yeah, sorry, I forgot for a second when I saw the tracks,” Retch said. “I got carried away. Who cares about nailing deer right off!”

  “I do!” Sidney yelped. “I just bought twenty-five hundred dollars worth of hunting stuff, and I want to get my free deer!”

  It was clear that Sidney had a lot to learn about hunting, so I lost no time in starting on his first lesson. I put him on a stand and told him that Retch and I would sweep around the far side of the ridge and drive some deer past him. “We’ll be back in an hour,” I told him. “Don’t move!”

  Retch and I returned three hours later and found Sidney still on the stand. He was frosted over and stiff as an icicle. We leaned him against a tree until we got a fire going to thaw him out.

  “How come you didn’t move around?” I asked him.

  “Y-you t-told me to stay on the st-stand. You said y-you would be b-back in an hour, and for me not to m-move.”

  “I’m sorry, I should have explained,” I said. “When a hunter says he’ll be back in an hour, that means not less than three hours. Furthermore, nobody ever stays on a stand as he’s told to. As soon as the other hunters are out of sight, he beats it off to some other place where he’s sure there’s a deer but there never is. That’s standard procedure. I guess I should have mentioned it to you.”

  “Yeah,” Retch said. “Anyway, next time you’ll know. It takes a while to catch on to deer hunting. Well, we might as well make camp. We ain’t gonna get no deer today.”

  “Oh, I got one!” Sidney said. “See, he’s lying over there behind that log. He was too big for me to move by myself. Right after you fellows left, he came tearing along the trail there, and I shot him.”

  “Oh-oh!” I said. “Better go have a look, Retch.”

  Retch walked over to the deer, looked down, shook his head, and walked back.

  “We’re in for it now,” he told me.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “Six points.”

  “Cripes!” I said.

  “Did I do it wrong?” Sidney asked.

  “We’ll have to wait and see,” I said.

  Sidney thought for a moment, then smiled. “Gee, wouldn’t it be funny if I was the only one to get a deer and it was my first trip and all, and you guys were teaching me how to hunt. Not that I would ever mention it to the guys down at Kelly’s Bar & Grill, but … Is six points good? Say, let me tell you how I got him. It was a tough shot, looked impossible to me at first. The six-point buck was going away from me at an angle, and …”

  “It’s going to be even worse than I first thought,” Retch said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Ol’ Sidney learns fast. Well, you can’t win ’em all.”

  First Knife

  In the time of my youth, the eighth birthday was special because that was the one at which your first pocketknife was bestowed upon you. Seven-year-olds were considered too immature and irresponsible to carry knives. Only when you turned eight did you grasp the absolute wisdom of this parental policy. It suddenly became quite obvious that the only reason God had made seven-year-olds at all was to heighten the satisfaction of eight-year-olds in owning a pocketknife.

  “C’mon, lemme whittle with your knife, Jack,” a seven-year-old brother would beg.

  “Sorry, Willy, I can’t do it,” the eight-year-old would respond maturely. “You’re too little.”

  “But, Jack, you cut yourself!”

  “Yeah, but I’m bigger, see. I got more blood. I can spare the blood.”

  When parents made the presentation of the pocketknife, they always warned the kid, “Now don’t cut yourself!” For some reason it was generally assumed that cutting himself was high on the kid’s list of priorities.

  The kid did four things with his new knife. First, he whittled a stick. Second, he cut himself. Third, he sharpened the knife. Fourth, he lost it. All four activities occurred within approximately twenty-four hours after the knife was presented to him. Many authorities on the subject believe that the fourth thing the kid did with his first knife was to break the point off the big blade trying to pry the cap off a bottle of pop, but they are wrong. That always happened to the second knife. The first knife was never around long enough for the kid to think of prying a pop-bottle cap off with it.

  Let’s consider in more detail the four applications of the first knife during its brief history.

  Whittling—You would select a straight-grained piece of cedar from the kindling box and reduce it to a pile of shavings. These shavings would then take on a life of their own, migrating to the sofa, your mother’s favorite rug, and the linen closet. They would turn up on your father’s new suit and your sister’s party dress. It was not unusual to find one sailing across a bowl of gravy during supper. The shavings seemed to reproduce themselves. After being freed from the stick, they went forth and multiplied. Parental threats against your person also multiplied, and you would from time to time hear muttered accusations exchanged between mother and father about whose idea it was to give you a knife anyway. Still, there was no turning back. Once you had whittled, you had the need always to whittle.

  Cutting Yourself—Cuts were not distributed randomly about your body, as many mothers feared and predicted. They were almost always confined to the section between the first and second knuckles on the index finger of the hand opposite the one that held the knife. Usually the first knife was only around long enough to produce one cut. This cut came as a great surprise and was never the result of carelessness but of some extraordinary circumstance. “A gust of wind blew my hand,” you would tell your mother. As she applied the bandage, she would wonder aloud if the bloodstains would come out of her favorite rug, yo
ur father’s white shirt, your sister’s party dress, the drapes, and various other odds and ends. You move around quite a lot during the ten seconds or so immediately following your first cut.

  Sharpening the Knife—Acting on the folk wisdom of the day that it was the dull knife that cut fingers, you would get out the whetstone and hone your knife’s blades, one big and one little, down to about one-half their former dimensions. Now you had what was known as a sharp knife. You would take the knife in to show your mother and father, and tell them, “Look, my knife’s sharp as a razor!” Your father would smile and go back to reading his paper, and your mother would make a show of turning pale. Later you would wonder if maybe you had overplayed your hand in comparing the knife’s sharpness to that of a razor.

  Losing the Knife—The disappearance of your knife had a certain eerie quality to it. You would remember having placed the knife carefully on top of your dresser when you turned in for the night. The next morning it would be gone.

  “I can’t find my knife,” you’d tell your father.

  “What?” he’d yell. “You just got it! That knife set me back a whole dollar! How could you be so careless as to lose it already?” He would continue to carry on in such a fashion for the better part of an hour, the authenticity of his ravings relieving him of any suspicion in the knife’s disappearance.

  “I can’t find my knife,” you’d tell your mother.