New Britain herald., 1927-01-05
A Lost Trap By Thornton W. Burgess

The trapper does no mercy feel
 Who sets the vicious trap of steel
 -Old Mother Nature
 As you know, certain of the peo- pie of the Green Forest are hunters. They live almost wholly on smaller people of the Green Forest, and these smaller people of the Green Forest are always in fear of these fierce hunters. But there is one thing that is understood among all the people of the Green Forest, lit- tie and big, and this is that the hunter hunts only that he himself may live. He hunts fairly. It is his wits against the wits of those he seeks. It is understood among all the little people that the price of life is the price of constant watch fitness: and that only the smartest live. which is quite as it should be.
 Man alone, among all the hunters has ever stopped to unfair hunting, Man alone has ever set trap. The trap is unfair. It is deadly enemy, lying in wait at a place where no enemy is to be expected. It is mer- cilesS. If 1t does not kill at once, it still holds on. The hunters in fur and feathers kill at once. The steel trap seldom kills. So it is that all tho little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows, all the lit- tie people who travel up and down the Laughing Brook, around the Smiling Pool, and along the Great River, look on the trapper as one without honor and without justice or fairness.
 Now. Paddy the Beaver is wise in the wisdom of the trapped and hunt ed. The moment he discovered that break in his dam, he suspected a hunter. Until we'll into the night he and Mrs. Paddy worked to repair that dam. And when the next day they found it cut open again, Paddy was more suspicious than ever.
 T know" said he to Mrs. Paddy, '1 know what it means. One of those two-legged creatures wants 10 catch us. He knows that we will repair that dam. He knows that we must repair it."
 But what I don't see is what he cut that hole for in the first place" declared Mrs. Paddy What good did it do? What good can it do?"
 No good" replied Paddy, be cause he doesn't know that l know what he is about. But if young Beav- CTS without our experience were in our place it might do him a great deal of good. You mark my words, my dear. there is a trap somewhere around that opening. That fellow wants our skins. But he'll keep right on wanting"
 So it was that when Paddy and Mrs. Paddy went over to repair the second break in their dam Paddy in- sisted that Mrs. Paddy should not come too close. He himself taking the greatest care, looked that open ing all over, At first he found noth- Ing suspicious. He found nothing suspicious, yet he was suspicious all the time. He couldn't get it out
 
 there somewhere. Again he went around. slowly, carefully, swimming, but taking the greatest care not to step down on anything He was just about to give up and decide that after all he had been mistaken when he discovered. cleverly hidden at just the point where he would be most likely to step in repairing the hole. suspicious bit of iron.
 Paddy got a stick and carefully poked 1t in over that bit of iron. He brought another stick and did the same thing, How he worked. Presently he had that place well cov- cred. Then he and Mrs. Paddy work ed as only Beavers can work. They buried that trap, for trap it was, where it could not possibly harm any one. In fact. they sprung the trap with one of the sticks they