Friday night, I thought for a moment that I was living a bad old ‘ghost’ story from childhood . . . .
An old American folk tale uses repetition (not to say tedium, but there it is . . .) to build suspense. A person seeking shelter in an abandoned building watches a parade of animals (cats in some versions) enter and stare at the interloper. Each successive animal is larger than the others, and asks if it’s time to bite or otherwise harm the person. Each time, the answer is “No, waaaaaait till Martin comes.” I don’t think I’m spoiling the surprise by relating that the person eventually gets up and leaves, saying something like, “When Martin comes, you tell him I’ve gone away again.”
After our initial snows, we had days when little more accumulated. During that time, our compound and trails became crisscrossed by animal tracks—mostly deer and a far-ranging marten (or seven?).
Around, around the cherry bush, the monkey is the weasel! Marten tracks under 6+ inches of new snow (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
