The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-11-09
THD 'PossUM AND HIS WAYS.


 There are few country boys living | south of line running through New | Jersey and westward to Ohio who do not know the mild fun of a moonlight pos sum hunt, few who have not reached gingerly into some old hollow stump and pulled out the smiling, unworried mar supial. Unless my experience is very uncommon one, there are few boys with in that district who have not taken their prize home, put him in barrel to await the morning, and found next morning, to their chagrin, that he would not stay in the barrel; there were greater attrac- tions outside. Later he took occasion in the moonlight to go back to his home stump.
 l Somehow 1t was always relief to me when the 'possum did that. It was much more fun to go out the next night through the corn fields looking for him than killing and eating him would have been. 'Possums are good to eat, but eating is not the whole of life-even to i a small boy-and killing is bad work. A frosty night, full moon, an old worn-out rabbit hound, and good com panion-and we are off for the persim-
 mon trees that grow here and there, scattered around the ponds, along the lanes, and about the margins of the fields.
 It is the first of November. The per. simmons hang on their leafiess twigs like big beads, silvsred with a double plate-a wash of frost and a wash of moonlight. No wonder the 'possums like them What boy does not like them, too? Here is a tree, a great sixty-foot- CT, that bears only small puckery per simmons no matter how the frosts bite; but just beyond is little tree-you know it--with deep garnet fruit, so su- gary that they cannot spoil, and there you stop-if the 'possums have not al- ready stopped before you. E@:..
 I have seen boys whom have taken to my favorite trees get so greedy after [ the first taste that they could not take time to pick out the seeds, but swal-
 lowed the persimmons whole, until they simply had to quit. -...... ..a,.s.
 The 'possums also know these sugary
 trees; their tooth is as sfeet as ours.
 Here, 1losing about on the ground or
 hanging by hing feet and tails in the Iladen limb, the boy will find them and
 start them, if on the ground, wabbling . off toward home
 A fat 'possum can run faster than a
 dog that is dead and buried, but only a very little faster. He does not depend : on his legs for safety; they are too : slow; nor vet on his wits, for they are still slower. He trusts very largely to stump holes, to luck, and to his distin- guished slowness. .:. :r<.-.. , No one is ever in a hurry with a 'pos- z sum. He Is such slow, simple dolt 1. that no dispatch, no precautions, are | needed with him. He seems to have ob- served this, and takes advantage of It. : which may mean that his wits are moi : so slow, after all He will escape, Ii . there is way; and if there is no way he will sleep sweetly until one comes Besides these traits, there are severa other habits that contribute to the DOS ' sums remarkably successful battle fol " life and liberty among it's hosts of enc i mics. First, there is usually a large
 family.
 D Again, the 'possum will eat anything :. that can be eaten--"f1sh, flesh or fowl ' Persimmons first, but they do not las
 the year round:. so, between persim : mons chicken, corn, fish, frogs, berries anything will do. Then, too, the colore'
 people, as a rule, are the only peopl o wise neough to eat possum; and as h |, is not particularly destructive, and doe . not wear hide worth curing, he is no e seriously hunted.
 All this, in large part, explains wh,
 the 'possum thrives about the edges 0 .s large towns and thickly populated farr n regions, where the coon, the rabbit, tn
 mink and the fox are rarely seen. ,r And he does thrive. How numerou a they are may be seen from the fact tha . one Christmas I received fifty-thre , from the woods about Bridgeton, N. J ,e and took them back to the New Eng
 land university for biological stud.
 Of course the neighbors helped me. Br
 all I had to do was to take a day 10 tramp among the woodchoppers an farmer acquaintances, making my DO: io sum wants known, and the 'possun Ia came in, in ones and twos and three o- costing at most only twenty-five cen ye apiece.
 a Long may he survive! I will be or as to eat Turkey this Thanksgiving instea ,e of 'possum, and after dinner, when
 take my woods walk, will be gls
 enough if Br'er 'Possun will let me st ,s him; and I will promise to do no mo
 than tockle him on the nose with stit he to see him "die'--for he will come bat i'll to life again to meet me once more at the woods,--Dallas Lore Sharp in the
 Nicholas. a.>.