Trigger Madden
From the archives of Paul Corbin
I have often wondered if the few people who read the articles I write, sometimes get the idea that I am inclined to exaggerate, when I tell about my old hunting dog or my friends, Pappy Knight, and Podunk Pete. Now, I did graduate SUM-MA-CUMLAU-DE from my exaggeration class of '33, but when I write, I try to control the words I use and keep them on the straight and narrow. However, there may be a few times when I lose control of these words and let them wander.
Even Mark Twain, when he was writing his classic story, "Huckleberry Finn", started this book by admitting that there were times when he did stretch the truth. Now, I know that I am not a Mark Twain, but if Mark Twain could stretch the truth and get by with it, then why can't I?
So, if you think you can tolerate another one of my stories, just hang on and follow me down a slightly glamorized trail, as I introduce you to another one of my old friends, "Trigger Madden." I'll tell you another story about my old hunting dog, "Ky-Rucus."
Now, Trigger Madden was not what you would call a pillar of the community. Though he was not a deacon of the church, his hometown did occasionally provide a private room for him. This room was so secure that it had bars on the windows. Trigger didn't bother anyone to any great extent, but he wasn't quite "all there." He had a wooden leg, and that leg must have been hollow, because he could absorb a quart of Pappy Knight's special recipe and still warble a pretty good rendition of "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane" or "Show Me The Way To Go Home."
In order to remain inconspicuous, Trigger usually took his fiesta in a little patch of woods at the edge of town, where there was a large maple tree that had a hollow place on one side where he could stand on his wooden leg and lean back in the hollow of this tree.
Late one evening in mid January, Trigger was in an imbibing mood, so he stopped by Pappy's place, picked up a jug of Pappy's special recipe, hobbled out to his favorite hollow tree and started the process of tuning up for his song fest. Now just about the time that Trigger was getting tuned up, a storm came howling out of the north. It was a full-blown "Forty-Twenty" blizzard, with winds of forty miles an hour and twenty below zero, but Trigger didn't freeze, because he was well fortified with Pappy's special recipe, which was just as potent as any antifreeze. Problem was, his wooden leg was not protected, because it had not had time to absorb any of this antifreeze--so it froze to the ground. Trigger started hollering for help, but it didn't do any good, because it was so cold that his words just froze and fell to the ground at his feet.
The next morning when it warmed up a little, the people in town heard this shocking, rumbling noise, as Trigger's pile of words began to thaw out, and they came down to see what was going on. Trigger was all right, but since his wooden leg was frozen to the ground, they had to cut him loose from the leg. They took Trigger to town and thawed him out, and just left the wooden leg standing in the hollow of the big maple tree.
Well, Trigger didn't get out any more till spring, and when he went back for his wooden leg, he found that it had sprouted limbs and leaves, and had to be pruned before he could wear it again.
Now this story about Trigger Madden may seem a bit wild, but if my old, loquacious hunting dog were still here, he would verify the authenticity of every word of it. You might remember Ky-Rucus, my good old possum huntin' dog. Ky-Rucus was just as good at hunting quail as he was at hunting possums.
When I was about twelve years old and lived back in the woods along Cato Slough, Ky-Rucus helped me shoot lots of quail. We were so poor back then that I couldn't afford shotgun shells so I did my hunting with a slingshot, and a pocket full of rocks. I had told Ky-Rucus not to scare up a whole covey of quail at one time, so he was very careful and soon learned to scare them up' one at a time, and I seldom ever missed one with my slingshot. Ky-Rucus even learned to drive these quail along till he came to a hollow log. He would drive them into the log and then scratch the end of the log full of grass and weeds, and I could catch the whole covey at one time.
Well one day Ky-Rucus rounded up a big covey of quail, drove them in a big hollow log, stopped up the end of the log with weeds and grass, and then discovered that this log had a knothole in it. Ky-Rucus just put one paw over the hole in the log, and let these quail out one quail at a time. As he let them out, I killed 14 of them with my slingshot and never missed a quail. When I got home, my dad helped me dress these birds, and he was so disgusted that he took my slingshot away from me for a week, because I had hit three of these quail in the back end instead of their head.
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- -- Posted by Dexterite1 on Sat, Mar 7, 2015, at 6:12 AM
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