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Updated: June 27, 2025
They went crazy over him, and of course that made all the young Mr. 'Possums jealous of him, though they would have given anything to be like him. They knew they couldn't be that, so they hoped something would happen to him, and used to tell him of nice new and interesting walks to take when they thought Mr. Painter might be in that neighborhood.
The possums were skinned and cooked in a big kettle hung over the fire, then taken out and put in a big oven to take. A piece of streaked meat was put in and a small pod of red pepper My-My what eatin' we had! "We fished with a stock pole and a twine string. We had big times hunting fishing worms for bait. We used to catch Hockney, Hads and Chubs.
"Well, old party," he said to Thunder, "you're a thundering old nuisance; but I s'pose you won't be satisfied till I come." He got a gun from the waggonette, loaded it, and started up the ridge; old Thunder rushing to and fro to show the way as if the row the other dogs were making wasn't enough to guide his master. When Bob returned with the 'possums he was startled to see a woman in the camp.
"You old fraud," said he. "You think you are fooling me, but I know you. Possums don't die of nothing in hens' nests. You certainly are a clever old rascal, and the best actor I've ever seen. I wonder how long you will keep it up. I wish I had half as much self-control."
The wretched hut was a rough school, sometimes with a clay fire-place where the teacher cooked, and a corner screened off with sacking where he had his bunk; it was a camp for tramps at other times, or lizards and possums, but to-day it was a house of God, and as such the people respected it. The town parson didn't turn up.
He could hear old Mrs. Possum cleaning house and scolding the little Possums who kept climbing up on her back. As he listened, Unc' Billy grinned and began to sing in a queer cracked voice: "You'all better stop lazing and hustle about fo' something fo' dinner," said old Mrs. Possum, sticking her sharp little face out of the doorway.
When the Koala had taken a timid peep at itself, the Opossum said that the Koala now had an idea of how stupid it looked, and the little bear went off to get used to having an idea in its head. The Opossum was so pleased with its spiteful joke that it hastily said good night, and hurried away to tell it to the other possums.
And always, each summer, there was the farm, where his recreation was no longer mere girl plays and swings, with a colored nurse following about, but sports with his older boy cousins, who went hunting with the men, for partridges by day and for 'coons and 'possums by night.
"Maybe they don't come out on the Fourf uv July," said Dumps. "Maybe 'possums keeps it same as peoples," "Now, maybe dey duz," said Dilsey, who was glad to have some excuse for her profitless 'possum-hunting; and the children, being fairly tired out, started back to the creek bank, when they came upon Uncle Snake-bit Bob, wandering through the woods, and looking intently on the ground.
Then, too, old Granny Fox and Reddy Fox had moved way, way off to the Old Pasture on the edge of the mountain, and so Unc' Billy felt that his eight little Possums could play about without danger. So he sat with his back to the great hollow tree, wondering if it wouldn't be perfectly safe for him to slip up to Farmer Brown's hen-house in the dark of the next night for some fresh eggs.
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