But Thomas Cushing, at times, had brought home quail. He had used a bow and arrow from the time he had been big enough to toddle, having been taught its use by his grandfather, who was a master of it. In the fall the coons had come down from the hills to raid the corn patch, and though they took part of the crop, they paid heavily for it, returning in their meat and hides far more than the value of the corn they took. For there always had been coon dogs at the cabin, sometimes only one or two, sometimes many of them; and when the coons came down to raid, Tom and his grandfather had gone Out with the dogs that trailed the coons and caught them or Cornered them or treed them. When they had been treed, Tom had climbed the tree, with a bow in one hand and two arrows in his teeth, going slowly, searching for the coon, clinging to a limb somewhere above him and silhouetted against the night sky. It had been tricky climbing and tricky shooting, propped against the trunk of the tree to shoot. Sometimes the coon would get away and other times it wouldn't.

It was his grandfather whom it now seemed he could remember best—always an old man with grizzled hair and beard, sharp nose, mean and squinting eyes—for he was a mean man, but never mean with Tom. Old and tough and mean, a man who knew the woods and hills and river. A profane man who swore bitterly at his aching and arthritic joints, who cursed the fate of growing old, who brooked no foolishness and no arrogance except his own foolishness and arrogance. A fanatic when it came to tools and weapons and to domestic animals. Although a horse might be roundly cursed, it was never flogged, never mistreated, well taken care of—for a horse would be hard to replace. One might be bought, of course, if one knew where to go; or stolen, and stealing, as a rule, was easier than buying, but either took a great deal of time and effort and there was a certain danger in either of them. Weapons you must not use lightly.