The Grasshopper Trap

by Patrick F. McManus

  “Don’t bother me now,” she’d say. “I have to sort the wash.”

  Somehow the urgency of your mother’s having to sort the wash and the disappearance of your knife seemed related, but you could never find any real proof of maternal culpability.

  Having once owned a knife, you now discovered that the craving to whittle was almost overpowering. You couldn’t look at a piece of cedar kindling without being overcome with the urge to reduce it to shavings with your own pocketknife. But there were only two options open to you for acquiring a new knife. The first consisted of finding a job and earning enough money to buy one, but there were few employment opportunities for eight-year-olds. Consequently, you resorted to the child’s version of the credit card: begging.

  Sooner or later, begging would produce a second knife. The second knife would bear an uncanny resemblance to the first knife. Your mother would explain that she found it in the attic. Reluctantly offering it to you, she would advise, “Now don’t cut yourself!”

  Whittling was the main application of the pocketknife. You would whittle chains out of a single block of wood, as your grandfather had done, although you never progressed beyond the first link, which uninformed observers often mistook for a notch cut in the end of a piece of kindling.

  Willow flutes were turned out by the gross. Inexplicably, the flutes would stubbornly refuse to produce a single toot, but they were great for humming through. Sometimes you could cut off the end of the flute and come up with a passable peashooter, which, smartly aimed, could produce a high C note from one of your associates.

  Of all the satisfactions to result from owning a knife, perhaps the greatest was the one of lending it to somebody, preferably a grownup, to perform some cutting chore. Sometimes you’d wait a year or two for such an opportunity. Then it would happen. You and a couple of your sidekicks would be standing about watching an adult perform some task, anything from undoing a sack of grain to overhauling an engine. No doubt the adult would have expressed some displeasure about the presence of his young audience, largely because it limited the use of colorful expressions in the release of frustration. You and the guys would be a bit nervous, but not enough to reduce your curiosity about the task being performed, or the hope you would get to hear a colorful expression. Then the adult would straighten up and dig into his pants pockets. Not finding what he sought, he would fix his attention on the spectators and speak the long-awaited words:

  “Anybody got a knife on ’im?”

  Ah, how delicious was the sound of that request! Even better was if the adult looked directly at you and asked, “Gotcher knife on ya?” Your knife. This indicated that the adult thought you the sort of mature and self-reliant and reliable person who would obviously carry a pocketknife.

  If it happened that the other kids in the audience didn’t have knives, had never owned knives, and even if they were only six or seven years old, they would still dig into their pockets and feel around among the contents in order to give the impression that they usually, almost always, had a knife on ’em but through some miserable stroke of fate had managed to leave it at home.

  Your response to the question of whether you had a knife on you had been thought through months and possibly years in advance. If you were fortunate enough to be chewing on a toothpick, you would reach up slowly, deliberately, and remove the toothpick, then flick it back over your shoulder, possibly creating the impression in the adult that you couldn’t chew a toothpick and reach for a knife at the same time, but no matter. There was a right way to do a thing and a wrong way, and this was the right way. Next you bent sideways from the hips, furrowed your brow slightly, and dug your hand into the pocket of your jeans, your fingers expertly sorting through such items as throwing rocks, a dried frog, a steel marble, your reserve wad of bubble gum, and the like, until they closed around the knife, your knife, the one that had been requested by an adult. You withdrew your knife with slow deliberation and expertly opened it, always selecting the big blade, of course. Then you handed it to the adult, who probably would have preferred to open the knife himself. And finally, at long last, you got to say it, not smugly or disrespectfully, of course, but matter-of-factly, maturely, and possibly with just the slightest touch of pride:

  “Careful you don’t cut yourself—that blade is razor sharp.”

  Nincompoopery and Other Group Terms

  My dictionary informs me that the proper term for a group of larks is an exaltation. An exaltation of larks! That’s wonderful! And it’s so descriptively accurate.

  You outdoorsmen probably think you’re pretty smart and know all the terms for groups of creatures. We’ll see about that right now.

  Let’s start with an easy one, a group of grouse. “Covey” you say, clapping your hands gleefully. But covey means a “family” of grouse. Suppose you have several families of grouse living together, what do you call that? If they’re like the families I know, it would be a “mess.” Actually, a group of grouse larger than a covey is a pack. In the interest of linguistic purity it is important to know the difference between a covey and a pack of grouse. To do this you must learn to distinguish between members of the immediate family and distant relations who have moved in for a bit of freeloading. This is not so difficult as you might think. The freeloaders are the grouse that get up at noon, go around unshaven, and keep asking, “What’s for supper?”

  Here’s something a little tougher. What is the proper term for a group of ferrets? Don’t just sit there scratching your head—guess. Okay, it’s a business of ferrets. What business are the ferrets in? I don’t know for sure, but it’s probably loan-sharking.

  The next term is a cinch—a group of geese. Flock is correct, but only if the geese are standing around killing time. If the group of geese is flying, it becomes a skein. If the geese are on the water, they’re a gaggle. Subtract fifty points from your score if to any of the above you answered “a bunch of gooses.”

  One of my favorites among the terms for groups of creatures is a crash of rhinoceros. I can imagine an African guide saying to his client, “Shoot, dammit, shoot! Here comes the whole bloody crash of rhinoceros!”

  You toad hunters out there probably don’t even know that a group of toads is called a knot. Personally, I think I’d just as soon come across a crash of rhinoceros as a knot of toad.

  Some of my other favorite group terms are

  • A convocation of eagles. (Not to be confused with a convention of Eagles, who are the ones wearing hats.)

  • A charm of hummingbirds.

  • A skulk of foxes.

  • A chattering of starlings.

  • A mustering of storks.

  • An unkindness of ravens.

  • A siege of herons.

  • A leap of leopards.

  • A murder of crows.

  • A screaming meemie of snakes. (I just tossed that in.)

  To finish off this quiz and give you a chance to redeem yourself, here are two easy ones—a group of elk and a group of bears. The answers are a gang of elk and a sloth of bears. Surely you and your fellow outdoorsmen say things like, “All at once I found myself right in the middle of this gang of elk,” or maybe, “Look, Fred! Here comes a sloth of bears! Run!”

  I myself use all of the above terms, although it has been some time since I’ve come upon a leap of leopards. Actually, when it comes to group terms, I prefer “a whole mess of,” which is easy to remember in tense situations, such as when a sloth of bears is heading your way.

  Sadly, there are no group names for outdoorsmen, who deserve their own group terms just as much as do other wild creatures. In the interest of lexicography, I have invented my own group terms.

  Let’s begin with Cub Scouts. As with geese, the group terms vary according to what the Cubs are doing. If they are meeting at someone else’s house, for example, they are referred to as a den. If they are meeting at your house, they are a din of Cub Scouts, a very important distinction, believe me! A group of den mothers, the ad
ult leaders of Cubs, is a frazzle. Collectively, the husbands of den mothers are the weekly poker game.

  There are different names for groups of fishermen in different situations. A group of fishermen driving out to begin a day of fishing is an exuberance. If the day turns out to be unsuccessful, the group is variously referred to as a sulk or a grumble. Fishermen surprised by a herd of mean cows (sometimes known as a mayhem of cows) become a panic of anglers or sometimes a skein of anglers. A group of ice fishermen is a chatter or a chill, although the term loony is often used, particularly by wives of ice fishermen.

  As a group, spouses of fishermen off on a three-day lark, or even an exaltation of larks, are variously a crash of wives, a leap of wives, and sometimes a murder of wives. Often a single wife will appear to be a whole group under these circumstances and it is all right to use the appropriate group term, if you get the chance and think it will do you any good.

  Strangely, there are few interesting group names for hunters. For example, a group of lost hunters is referred to as “a group of lost hunters,” although wives will occasionally refer to such a group as a nincompoopery. A boast of hunters refers to any group of hunters larger than one. A tedium is any group of hunters who get started talking about their first deer, first elk, or any of their other firsts, of which there are whole exaltations.

  As a child, I once joined a berserk of kid campers heading for home after a mountain lion screamed near our camp. It might have been a whole pride of mountain lions, for all I know, but even one was excessive.

  A whiff of skunk trappers is one of my favorite group terms, as is a cramp of camp cooks.

  But what’s that? Did I just hear a lark beckoning me? Gee, it may even be several larks, a whole exaltation of them. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone off on an exaltation. If there’s not a leap of wife outside my door, I might go investigate.

  Bad Company

  Back when I was a kid, my mother constantly warned me about falling in with bad company. Then one day it occurred to her that I was probably the bad company, and she had to warn the other kids about falling in with me.

  Personally, I’ve always preferred bad company to good. Bad company is so much more interesting. Outdoorsmen, and outdoorswomen too, for that matter, are the best of bad company. They have all these wild and terrible enthusiasms that inevitably lead to catastrophe. I don’t much care for arriving at the catastrophe, but getting there can be a lot of fun.

  Not everyone is cut out for bad company, however, and it is always sad to see such a person, a man or woman of sensibilities, fall in with the wrong crowd, which nine times out of nine consists of hunters and anglers. What usually happens is that the person of sensibilities becomes caught up in the wave of enthusiasm generated by bad company and gets swept along toward a catastrophe he doesn’t expect and isn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for. Some people just don’t have the nerves or stomach for catastrophe.

  I recall the time a nice young fellow by the name of Farley overheard Retch Sweeney and me planning a hunting trip and asked if he could come along. We said sure. Fortunately, it turned out to be an uneventful trip. I don’t know what would have happened if the outing had been typical, because it soon became evident that poor Farley wouldn’t have been up to a full-scale catastrophe.

  True, there was one small incident, but it’s scarcely worth mentioning. Retch slipped on some ice and grabbed Farley by the arm, so that they both went down together. That’s about it. The fall couldn’t have been more than ten feet. Besides, the thin ice on the creek cushioned their fall and prevented serious injury. Both Retch and I thought it was hilarious, all that flailing of arms and legs as they went through the ice, with Retch cussing a turquoise-blue streak and Farley screaming.

  I built a roaring fire so we could dry out their clothes, and even let Farley wear my down jacket. He looked so pitiful standing there naked and hunched over the fire, with snowflakes falling on his bare skin. To cheer him up, I explained that the fire would probably attract the attention of a search plane. After a hunting party has been lost in a blizzard for four days, I told him, the National Guard usually sends out a search plane. Then Retch and I tried to get him to join in the joking and singing and other festivities, but he would have none of it, choosing instead to stand around looking morose, with his teeth chattering and his skinny blue legs sticking out from under my jacket.

  Later we invited Farley on another hunting trip, but he declined, rather brusquely I thought.

  “Do you think it was something I done?” Retch said.

  “No,” I said. “I thought you treated him rather well, just as if he were one of the guys.”

  “Maybe he didn’t like the coffee we had to make with water from mud puddles,” Retch said. “He never caught on to the knack of straining out the pebbles with his teeth.”

  “That could have been it,” I said. “Mostly, though, I think it was because he had too many sensibilities.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. I had a sensibility once, and it was nothing but trouble.”

  The case of Farley serves to illustrate what happens when a person of sensibilities falls in with bad company but through rare good fortune avoids catastrophe. But suppose such a person doesn’t avoid the standard catastrophe; what is the effect on him? Do his sensibilities survive? Does he survive? Is the money spent on therapy wasted? The following report answers these questions.

  One day when I was about twelve, Rancid Crabtree and I discovered a bee tree high up on the mountain behind his place. An ancient logging road, grown over with brush and small trees, ran past the tall, silvery snag, which seemed fairly alive with thousands of bees busily and mindlessly storing more honey on top of the tons they had already no doubt collected over the years of undisturbed diligence.

  “Hot dang!” Rancid said. “We got ourselves a honey tree!”

  “So?” I said. “What good does it do us? We can’t get the honey out of it without getting stung to death.”

  “Thet jist goes to show how little you knows about honey trees,” Rancid said. “Shoot, thar ain’t nothin’ easier. The fust thang you does is to make a torch out of some rags, one thet’ll put up a big cloud of smoke. Then you gits some gloves and heavy clothes the bees cain’t sting through, and a hood of cheesecloth to protect the face. Then all that’s left is to git the tree chopped down and the honey scooped up.”

  “It doesn’t sound so easy to me.”

  “Waal, thet’s because Ah ain’t told you the best part yet. Once you git all the gloves and heavy clothes and the cheesecloth hood, you talks some dumb feller into puttin’ ’em on and choppin’ down the tree fer ya. Ha!”

  “Not me!”

  “No, not you. Even you ain’t thet dumb! Ah was thankin’ of Murph.”

  It was nearly dark before we tracked down Murph. He was lying on the floor in Fat Edna’s tavern, with Fat Edna sitting on his chest.

  “You take that back, you little shrimp,” Fat Edna was saying.

  “How you doin’, Murph?” Rancid said.

  “About the usual,” Murph said. “How you?”

  “Ah’s fine. If you got a minute, Ah’d like to ask a favor of you.”

  Fat Edna grabbed Murph by the hair and thumped his head up and down on the floor. “Can’t you see Murph’s busy?”

  Rancid hoisted Fat Edna off Murph. “You can finish this later. Ah needs to see if Murph knows anythang ’bout gittin’ honey out of a bee tree without gittin’ stung too bad.”

  There was plenty of bad company in the tavern that night, and upon hearing the mention of the bee tree, every last pitiful soul there rushed forward to offer a theory on how to get the honey away from the bees without getting stung. In no time at all, a great wave of enthusiasm began to build, a wave I later learned from association with bad company inevitably crashes down on the rocks of catastrophe.

  Half the regulars of the tavern and Fat Edna herself soon piled out of the tavern and into cars and trucks to go help Rancid an
d me chop down the honey tree. Rancid drove Murph’s truck, since he knew the way to the tree. Fat Edna squeezed into the cab with him, and Murph, Pinto Jack, and I, and several of the tavern’s regulars jumped onto the truck bed. As we roared out of town, I noticed a stranger in the group. He was tall, thin, bald, and wearing a white suit that shimmered in the light of the moon.

  “Hi,” he said to me. “My name’s Howard. This is so exciting, isn’t it? My goodness, I just stopped by the tavern for a little nightcap before going to my hotel room, and now I’m involved in an adventure. What’s your name, son?”

  I told him. There was something that made me feel uneasy about Howard. He didn’t seem to fit in with this crowd, which was very bad company indeed.

  One of the regulars tilted up the communal jug of wine, took a swig, and then passed it to me. “Here, kid, give your frien’a drink.” Although I never drank from a communal jug, or at all for that matter, I had studied the technique with care. I handed the jug to Howard. “You’d better take a drink,” I said. Getting my drift, Howard studied the loathsome flotsam on the surface of the wine. Obviously none too pleased with the results of his study, he nevertheless shut his eyes and manfully took a tiny swig. The regulars and I almost gagged. Howard didn’t realize that you are supposed to tilt the jug way back, so that the surface of the wine rises above the mouth and the drinker can sip from the clear wine beneath the flotsam. When you associate with bad company, bits of knowledge like that can be beneficial, both socially and hygienically. Ignorant though he might be of the finer points of etiquette, Howard had won our respect. The man had grit.

  When we started lumbering up the overgrown mountain road, we lost most of the caravan of vehicles that had followed us from the tavern. The others soon gave up their pursuit and turned back when the road proved too treacherous. Our group of honey-seekers bounced and rattled about on the bed of the truck, seeking handholds where we could. One by one the regulars vibrated off the end of the truck, presumably to pick themselves up and stagger off down the mountain. By the time we reached the bee tree, the only survivors were Murph, Pinto Jack, Howard, and me, and of course Rancid and Fat Edna in the cab of the truck—still more than enough of us, however, to work up a major catastrophe.