Rascal

by Sterling North

“We draw straws.”

  “And then what?”

  “The one who gets the short straw shinnies up the tree and catches her.”

  “Oh, no,” Oscar said. “Oh no you don’t. I ain’t that crazy.”

  “Come on, Oscar.”

  “No siree.”

  But at just this moment the four little raccoons set up such a plaintive quavering that we all felt miserable. We had to catch that mother raccoon. Wowser was as sad as I was. He pointed his big muzzle toward the evening sky and howled mournfully.

  “Well,” Oscar said, kicking his shoe into the fresh earth, “I’d better be getting home to help with the milking.”

  “Quitter,” I taunted.

  “Who’s a quitter?”

  “You’re a quitter.”

  “Well, OK, I’ll draw straws; but I think you’re loony.”

  I held the straws and Oscar drew the long one. Naturally I had to live up to my bargain. I looked far above me. In the fading glow of the sunset there she still was, twenty pounds of ring-tailed dynamite. I patted Wowser as though for the last time and began my tough scramble up that slender trunk.

  As I shinnied up the tree, in no great hurry to tangle with the raccoon, I had one piece of good fortune. The full moon began to rise above an eastern hill giving me a little more light for my dangerous maneuver. Far out on the first limb, the outraged animal took a firm stance, facing me, her eyes glowing balefully in the moonlight.

  “I’m going to cut off the branch with my jackknife,” I told Oscar.

  “And then what?”

  “You’re supposed to catch her when she falls in the hazel brush.”

  Oscar suggested that I had bats in my belfry. But he took off his corduroy jacket and prepared to throw it over the raccoon in a do-or-die effort for which he had little enthusiasm.

  Whittling through two-and-one-half inches of white oak with a fairly dull jackknife is a laborious process, as I soon discovered. I was in a cramped position, holding on with my left hand and hacking away at the wood with my right. And I feared the raccoon might try to rush me when the limb began to break.

  The moon rose slowly through the trees as blisters rose slowly on my right hand. But I couldn’t weaken now. From far below came the whimpering of the raccoon kits, and an occasional mournful howl from Wowser. Tree toads and frogs in the swamp began their chorus, and a little screech owl, sounding almost like another raccoon, added an eerie tremolo.

  “How you coming?” Oscar asked.

  “Coming fine. Get ready to catch her.”

  “Count on me,” Oscar said, his voice less convincing than his brave words.

  The tasseled limb of the white oak sighed at last, broke with a snap, and drifted down to the hazel brush below.

  Oscar tried. I will give him credit for that. He tangled for five seconds with that raccoon, and then retreated with a damaged jacket. Three of the little raccoons, hearing their mother’s call, trundled with amazing swiftness into the hazel brush to follow her, and were gone. Oscar, however, was quick enough to cup one kit in his cap, our only reward for our labor—but reward enough, as time would prove. As nearly as we could tell, the handsome, sharply marked little animal was covered only with soft gray underfur, having few of the darker guard hairs which later gleam on the adult raccoon.

  He was the only baby raccoon I have ever held in my hands. And as he nestled upward like a quail chick, and nuzzled like a puppy seeking its mother’s milk, I was both overwhelmed with the ecstasy of ownership and frightened by the enormous responsibility we had assumed. Wowser romped beside us through the moonlight, often coming to sniff and lick the new pet we had found—this bit of masked mischief which had stolen his heart as well as my own.

  “He’s yours,” Oscar said sadly. “My old man would never let me keep him. He shot a ’coon in the chicken house just a few weeks ago.”

  “You can come and see him,” I suggested.

  “Sure, I can come and see him.”

  We walked in silence for a time, thinking of the injustices of the world that made so few allowances for the nature of raccoons and boys of our age. Then we began talking about all the raccoons we had ever seen, and how we would feed this kit and teach him all the things he would have to learn.

  “I seen a raccoon mother once with five kits,” Oscar said.

  “What were they doing?”

  “She was leading them along the edge of the stream. They did everything she did.”

  “Like what?”

  “Feeling around with their front paws hunting for crawdads, I guess.”

  On the horizon there were flashes of distant lightning and a low rumbling of thunder, sounding like artillery many miles away. It reminded us that the war was still raging in France, and that maybe my brother Herschel was being moved up to the front. I hated to think about that terrible war which had been killing and wounding millions of men ever since the year my mother died. Here we were, safe and remote from the war, and worrying about such small and unimportant things as whether Oscar would get a whipping when he got home, and how to feed and raise a little raccoon.

  As we came up the lane toward Sunderland’s farmhouse, Oscar began saying, “Ishkabibble, I should worry.” But he acted worried to me. When we reached his front yard he dared me and double-dared me to go up and knock on the door. Meanwhile he hid behind a flowering spirea bush and waited to see what might happen.

  Oscar was wise to let me do the knocking. Herman Sunderland came storming out, swearing in German and Swedish. He was certainly angry with Oscar, and he didn’t seem to like me very much either.

  “Vere is dot no-goot son of mine?”

  “It wasn’t Oscar’s fault,” I said. “I asked him to come for a walk with me, and . . .”

  “Vere iss he now?”

  “Well,” I said.

  “Vell, vell, vell! Vot you mean, vell?”

  “We dug out a den of raccoons,” I said, “and here is the one we brought home.”

  “Coons,” shouted Sunderland, “verdammte varmints.”

  I was afraid that Mr. Sunderland might flush Oscar from behind the spirea bush, but at just this moment Oscar’s gracious mother came out on the front porch, the moonlight shining on her silvering hair.

  “Go to bed, Herman,” she said quietly. “I will take care of this. Come out, Oscar, from behind that bush.”

  To my surprise, Oscar’s father meekly obeyed, taking a lamp up that long, dark parlor stairway—his shadow much taller than himself. And Oscar’s mother took us to the kitchen where she fed us a warm supper and began to heat a little milk to the temperature that would be right for a human baby.

  “It is hungry, the little one,” she said, petting the small raccoon. “Go fetch a clean wheat straw, Oscar.”

  She filled her own mouth with warm milk, put the wheat straw between her lips, and slanted the straw down to the mouth of the little raccoon. I watched, fascinated, as my new pet took the straw eagerly and began to nurse.

  “Look how the little one eats,” Oscar’s mother said. “This is the way you will have to feed him, Sterling.”

  II: June

  JUNE was the month! School was out, cherries were ripe, and all the boys and some of the girls went barefoot. Boys had many extra advantages such as swimming naked and wandering alone along the streams and rivers, casting for bass among the water lilies. Girls had to wear swimming suits and come in earlier from our evening games of prisoner’s base and run-sheep-run. I was very thankful that I was a boy.

  Despite mowing lawns and working in my war garden, I had many additional hours to spend with my pets, watching my woodchucks nibbling clover, feeding my four yearling skunks their bread and milk, and trying to keep Poe-the-Crow from stealing bright objects such as car keys. Most satisfying of all were the hours that I spent with my small raccoon whom I had named Rascal.

  Perhaps a psychologist might say that I had substituted pets for a family. I had a human family, of course—interesting, well-educated, and af
fectionate. But Mother was dead, my father often away on business trips, my brother Herschel fighting in France, and my sisters Theo and Jessica now living their adult lives. Both sisters had taken tender care of me after Mother died, Jessica in particular postponing her career and marriage.

  But now Theo was happily wed to a young paper-mill owner in northern Minnesota, and Jessica, a talented linguist and poet, was taking postgraduate work at the University of Chicago. Often the only occupant of our ten-room house was an eleven-year-old boy working on his canoe in the living room and thinking “long, long thoughts.”

  One problem that puzzled me was theological. I asked myself how God could be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-merciful and still allow so much suffering in the world. In particular, how could He have taken my gifted and gentle mother when she was only forty-seven years old?

  I asked some of these questions of Reverend Hooton,* the Methodist minister whose church and parsonage adjoined our property, and his answers were not particularly satisfying.

  It seemed to me unfair that she could not have lived to see the pets I was raising—Rascal especially. I could imagine her pleasure both as a biologist and as a mother. She would have been interested in studying more closely the habits of all these animals, and would have helped me solve some of the difficult problems they presented.

  For instance, both my crow and my skunks were currently in trouble with the Methodists. Poe-the-Crow lived in the belfry of the church, and shouted the only phrase he knew, “What fun! What fun!” as dignified parishioners came to church services, weddings, and funerals. There was one faction of the church in favor of evicting Poe, with a shotgun if necessary.

  My harmless skunks had further complicated matters on a recent Sunday evening. These pleasant pets that I had dug from a hole the previous spring were now more than a year old and somewhat restless. They were handsome, glossy creatures—one broad-stripe, one narrow-stripe, one short-stripe, and one black beauty with a single star of white on his head. All four had perfect manners. Having never been frightened or abused, they had never scented up the neighborhood.

  But one night in June when Wowser must have been drowsing, a stray dog came barking and snarling at them through the woven wire, and they reacted predictably. Sunday services were progressing at the church not seventy feet from their cage. It was a warm evening, and the windows of the choir loft were open. For the first time in his life Reverend Hooton shortened his sermon.

  On Monday morning a delegation of deacons came to protest to my father.

  With both Poe and the skunks at issue, I was in double jeopardy, so I decided to make an accommodation. I gave all my skunks a last meal of bread and milk and took them in two carrying baskets to Wentworth’s woods where there were many empty dens to hide in. The Methodists were so pleased to be rid of the skunks that they decided to postpone indefinitely the eviction of Poe-the-Crow.

  Rascal meantime was living in a hole some five feet above the ground in our big red oak tree. Since raccoons usually stay in their nest for the first two months of their lives, I saw little of my pet except when I took him out to feed him. I soon taught him how to drink his warm milk from a saucer, which was a great improvement over the laborious process of letting him nurse through a wheat straw.

  Wowser was his guardian, remaining almost constantly at the foot of the oak tree, even sleeping there at night.

  But on an afternoon in mid-June, Wowser and I were both alerted by a quavering trill at the hole in the tree, and there we saw a small black mask and two beady eyes peering out at the wide world beyond. A moment later Rascal had executed an about-face and was emerging from the hole, ring tail first, backing down the tree cautiously in the manner of a little bear. Raccoons have five unretractable claws on each of their hands and feet, making headlong descent inadvisable. So Rascal instinctively came down tail first, scrambling frantically from time to time, and often looking over his shoulder to see how far he was from the ground.

  Wowser was very much disturbed and yelped a few questions, looking up to see how I felt about this new problem. I told my Saint Bernard not to worry, just to wait and watch.

  Rascal must have been surveying the back yard very thoroughly from his front door for he started immediately for my shallow, cemented, bait pond, always alive with minnows.

  The edges of this pool slanted gradually toward the deeper central portion, making it convenient for my amazingly confident little raccoon. Without a moment’s hesitation he waded in and began feeling all over the bottom, his sensitive prehensile fingers telling him all that he needed to know about this minnow pond. Meanwhile his eyes seemed to focus on the far horizon, as though eyes and hands were in no way connected. Shiners and chubs dashed frantically for safety, sometimes leaping clear of the water in their attempt to escape.

  As Rascal methodically circled the pool on his first fishing expedition, I marveled that one so young, and with no mother to teach him, knew precisely the technique used by all other raccoons for catching minnows. I watched fascinated to see if some ancient wisdom stored within his brain would make his search successful. My answer came a moment later when those two clever little black hands seized a four-inch shiner. Then the washing ceremony began. Although the minnow was perfectly clean, Rascal sloshed it back and forth for several minutes before retiring to dry land to enjoy his meal—more delicious because he had caught this fish himself.

  Seemingly satisfied with the one minnow, and aware he could catch more any time he wished, Rascal began a leisurely tour of the back yard, sniffing and feeling. There were interesting odors to be classified—odors of cat, dog, woodchuck, and recently evicted skunk. There were crickets in the grass worthy of a pounce, and the chilling shadow of Poe-the-Crow, which for a passing moment froze Rascal in his tracks as a meadow mouse will freeze in the shadow of a hawk.

  When Rascal came too near to any of our property lines, Wowser went into action, nudging him back toward the tree. Rascal responded mildly to this discipline, and after another fifteen minutes examining his domain, this small lord of the manor returned to his castle, climbed the tree more easily than he had descended, and disappeared into his hole.

  I decided one day that Rascal was clean enough and bright enough to eat with us at the table. I went to the attic and brought down the family highchair, last used during my own infancy.

  Next morning while my father was fixing eggs, toast, and coffee, I went out to get Rascal, and placed him in the highchair beside me at the table. On his tray I put a heavy earthenware bowl of warm milk.

  Rascal could reach the milk easily by standing in the chair and placing his hands on the edge of the tray. He seemed to like the new arrangement and chirred and trilled his satisfaction. Except for dribbling a little milk, easily wiped from the tray of the highchair, his table manners proved excellent, much better than those of most children. My father was amused and permissive as usual, and even petted the raccoon as we finished our meal.

  Breakfast-for-three became part of the daily ritual, and we had no trouble whatsoever until I had the idea of offering Rascal a sugar loaf. It is true we were at war, observing heatless, meatless, and wheatless days, and conserving sugar. But my father and I did no baking, and used almost none of our sugar ration, save for a lump or two in coffee. So I did not feel too unpatriotic when I gave Rascal his first sugar.

  Rascal felt it, sniffed it, and then began his usual washing ceremony, swishing it back and forth through his bowl of milk. In a few moments, of course, it melted entirely away, and a more surprised little ’coon you have never seen in your life. He felt all over the bottom of the bowl to see if he had dropped it, then turned over his right hand to assure himself it was empty, then examined his left hand in the same manner. Finally he looked at me and trilled a shrill question: who had stolen his sugar lump?

  Recovering from my laughter, I gave him a second sugar lump, which Rascal examined minutely. He started to wash it, but hesitated. A very shrewd look came into his bright blac
k eyes, and instead of washing away a second treat, he took it directly to his mouth where he began to munch it with complete satisfaction. When Rascal had learned a lesson, he had learned it for life. Never again did he wash a lump of sugar.

  His intelligence, however, created many problems. For instance, he had seen the source of the sugar—the covered bowl in the middle of the table. And whereas I had previously been able to confine him to his highchair, he now insisted upon walking across the tablecloth, lifting the lid of the sugar bowl, and helping himself to a lump. From that day on, we had to keep the sugar bowl in the corner cupboard to avoid having a small raccoon constantly on the dining room table.

  Another lesson he learned swiftly was how to open the back screen door. I purposely had not repaired the catch or replaced the weakened spring, because all of my cats liked to open the door and walk in, or push it from inside and let themselves out again. Rascal watched this performance several times. Obviously the trick was to hook your claws into the screen and pull. Feeling very pleased with himself he showed the cats he was as smart as the oldest and wisest tom.

  Several nights later I was startled and delighted to hear Rascal’s trill from the pillow beside me, then to feel his little hands working all over my face. My raccoon baby had climbed from his hole, opened the back screen door, and with eyes that could see in the dark had found his way to my bed.

  There were no strict rules in our house, as both Rascal and I realized. My raccoon had decided that the very best place to sleep was with me. He was as clean as any cat, housebroken immediately and without training, and he thought my bed was softer and more comfortable than his own in the oak tree. So from that night on we became bedfellows, and for many months we slept together. I felt less lonesome now when my father was away.

  Cable stories in the Janesville Daily Gazette admitted that the Germans had reached the banks of the Marne and were within sight of the Eiffel Tower. On the big war map in the window of the Tobacco Exchange Bank, the black-headed pins representing the German lines were in several places pushing back the red, white, and blue pins which indicated various allied sectors. Somewhere in that storm of lead and steel my brother Herschel was fighting.