Skunked

There is always variety of people in a family and we were lucky enough to have a prolific writer in James Laird Warner.

This is an excerpt from his 300 type-written page book Wyoming Echoes about his life and family. Eventually I’ll have this book completely digitized but not quite yet. It’s a big book!

Until then, this is one of our favorite stories from the beginning of the book. Enjoy!

Late one fall a skunk got into our cellar.  As usual we had a ton or more of potatoes stored there was well as other vegetables and supplies for the winter.  For weeks we tried to catch the skunk outside so we could close the small ventilator window and keep him out.  All was in vain. 

Perhaps there were two skunks though we never saw but one at a time.  One passer-by (we did have neighbors though the nearest was several miles away) said that the way to handle the “varmint” was to back him into a corner, reach over and pick him up by his tail.  So handled, the skunk couldn’t or wouldn’t, “shoot”.  It sounded possible but no one ever volunteered to try the method of eviction.  

One evening we were making a concentrated family effort to solve the problem.  Berch was outside ready to close the window if the skunk came out and shoot him if he could get him away from the building.  Dell [Della] was down at the foot of the cellar-way with a pitchfork.  Adene and I [Laird] were up the steps behind her.  All at once the skunk ran across the floor towards us.  Adene and I scrambled out of there and slammed the celler-way door shut.  The door latched itself and left Della trapped with the skunk.  She never hesitated but waded in with the pitchfork.  In half a minute there was a dead skunk and a very live odor in the cellar.  I don’t remember if we were ever able to eat that ton of potatoes or not.