for the funding your faith, your hope and your charity have brought me. You have all been very kind.”
Peabody paused while his audience snorted and groaned and someone asked: “Can’t anybody shut him up?”
The Major allowed a faint smile to cross his face and continued. “I won’t criticize your acceptance of faith, hope and charity because I must admit they, too, has been the rule and guide of my life. Only through the exercise of unbelievable self control have I been able to disregard them while seated at the poker table this evening. Most men could not disregard the driving urges I have felt to contribute to your welfare. However, my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure”
Peabody’s admission was duly acknowledged by his companions. Their comments were: “I think I’m going to throw up” and “Please stop. I’m allergic to bull by-product” and “Sanctimonious son of a female dog”.
Peabody paid no attention to them. “This evening, my charitable urges have been overwhelming and I have nearly found myself deciding to give each of you twenty dollars. I’ve tried to convince myself such a gift would be an appropriate rebate for your kindness and generosity at the table. After the most careful of consideration, I have rejected the thought. I know you are all too proud to accept charity.”
Murmurs of protest began and one of the three hunters stood and said: “I’m not” while another yelled out: “Just try me.”
Peabody quickly held up his hand to quiet them. “No. No,” he said. “I’m sure not one of you would stoop to accept an outright gift of a part of the money you had honorably lost at the gaming table. At the same time, the charitable urge within me is so strong I cannot deny it. You see my problem, don’t you? I want to give and you are too proud to accept. Whatever shall I do?”
The Major thought for a moment and then cried out: “Eureka. I believe I have found a path around my dilemma. Suppose you were to make a bet with me. If you won, you would not be humiliated by receiving charity and my urge to soften your poker losses would be honorably satisfied. I would not have offered charity. You would not have accepted charity.”
Peabody’s statement was greeted with skepticism and distrust.
“Look out. He’s got something up his sleeve.”
“I wouldn’t bet with Peabody if he was the last man on earth.”
“I would bet with Peabody - but only if he was the last man on earth.”
Major Peabody went to the ice chest, opened it and removed an orange. He placed it in the center of the poker table and slowly shook his head in disappointment. “So much for good deeds,” he said. “Out of the generosity which is so characteristic of my being, I was going to bet each of you twenty dollars that I could tell the exact number of pips inside this orange.”
Abrupt silence followed as the three hunters showed unmistakable signs of interest in the proposition. They huddled and softly analyzed the bet.
“Is it one of those seedless oranges?”
“No. The one I ate had lots of seeds.”
“Do you think he opened that one and counted them?”
“You don’t think he’s telling the truth, do you?”
They looked at each other and found agreement.
“You’ve got a bet,” one of them said, “but we get to select the orange. OK?”
Major Peabody nodded his agreement. With a smile of Christian charity, he began to peel the substituted orange. “I’ll tell you the number of pips,” he said, “just as soon as I open this thing and count them.”
His fellow hunters screamed imprecations and called him a cheat, a swindler, and an unmitigated scoundrel. Peabody calmly denied their accusations. “I am, in fact, a true devotee of sweet charity,” he protested and then added, “As you all know, charity begins at home.”
Rain
The shack covered an area no larger than eight feet by sixteen feet. It was located between a forested plot and twenty acres of incompletely harvested corn. If there had been a finished ceiling, the room would have been seven feet high. The structure housed a broken bunk, a table, chairs and a wood stove made out of a fifty-five gallon oil drum. Major Peabody said he thought the roof had to be older than the building. It allowed a number of leaks. One of them dripped directly onto the stove. The water sizzled when it landed on it.
A window graced the south wall. Three of its panes were glass. The other was a piece of weathered corrugated paper. The door had seen better days. Binder twine was threaded through the hole where the door knob should have been. The other end of the twine was tied to a bent nail driven into what was left of the door jam. It nearly held the door shut. No one knew when the place had been abandoned, but it wasn’t a recent occurrence.
In addition to the Major, the shack also contained three other hunters and two dogs. They were all very happy to be there. It was raining outside. Not drizzling. Heavily raining. Had it been drizzling, the men would have been in the field, watching their dogs enthusiastically wagging tails and snuffling the ground in search of pheasants. Now, the dogs sat with their muzzles on their owner’s laps, getting their ears scratched and filling the small room with the special perfume coming only from wet dog hair.
When four hunters and three dogs are crammed into a small shack, they’ll talk about hunting. (The dogs won’t talk. They’ll sit, get their ears scratched and listen in the often disappointed hope of learning something intelligent.) As surely as the night follows the day, the men will recount their own experiences.
Major Peabody slid a shingle into a slivered rafter in order to funnel the drips away from the stove and Tom Rosenow took the floor.
“Jim. Do you remember the time we were hunting grouse up near Watersmeet?”
“Yes, I remember it.” Jim couldn’t forget it. Tom wouldn’t let him. Every time they met he was sure to tell the same story. Each time the story was embellished a bit more until neither of them recalled exactly what had happened.
“Your dog. Sparkle, chased up a bird and it flew off to my right, dodging around the popple trees. It was a long and difficult shot - I’d say about fifty yards - but I tried it anyway. The bird took a ninety degree turn, flew through some balsams and disappeared into a swamp. You remember, Jim?”
“I remember,” Jim said quietly. He knew what was coming.
“Well, Jim came over and took great delight in giving me a three minute lecture on wasting shells, shooting at out-of-range birds and, by missing, disappointing his dog. Just as he was getting into a full barrage of abuse, Sparkle came out of the swamp with the grouse in its mouth. I’ll never forget it.”
“You’ll never let me forget it,” Jim muttered. He could have told an entirely different version of Tom’s story, but would have run a serious risk of violating the Hunter’s Code of Ethics. Shotgun hunters tend to be polite fellows. They allow the story teller some leeway with regard to absolute truth. They expect a certain amount of poetic license and will accept the accuracy of a fellow hunter’s story even if such acceptance requires a super active imagination.
“It doesn’t
