CHAPTER TWELVE—RACCOON HUNTING ON GALLOWS HILL

 

Raccoon, vintage engraving.

     Two weeks later we used the pellet gun on a raccoon hunt. It was a cold night in November. Cliff Holmes, Paul Kuty, Raymond Kuty, Wayne Matthews and I went into the woods off Sprout Brook Road and we climbed Gallows Hill on an old path at night. We had two flashlights and several candy bars for snacks. Cliff had obtained Al Zeliph's dog, Spot. The dog was leading us but soon disappeared in the darkness of the woods. Spot was a silent tracker. Ten minutes later we stopped and listened for the dog's barking or howl to guide us to a treed raccoon. While we waited we made scary faces with our flashlights under our chins. We told stories about girls which were outright lies. We were all about the same age, thirteen.

     After fifteen minutes of shivering in place and exchanging stories, we heard the dog and started after him. We were excited. We were running and we crashed through thickets and saplings, over stone walls, holding branches back so as not to hit the boys following in the dark. After fifteen minutes we found the dog at a tall oak tree not far from Mr. Singer's house.

     Spot was more excited than we were. He howled and danced around the base of the tree, sometimes stopping to look up, sometimes scrambling for a better position to see the cornered raccoon high up in the tree. We soon had our flashlights pointed at the raccoon and we circled the tree for the best shooting position. Every now and then we could see the eyes of the raccoon when it looked down at us.

     Paul loaded the pellet gun and took the first shot. The raccoon was hit but it didn't fall. I took the next shot with the same result. Cliff fired next, and then Wayne. When Raymond took his turn and shot, we heard blood dropping in the leaves at the base of the tree. It made a sound like a leaky water pipe. Pit-pat-pit-pat.

     Paul suggested that someone had to climb the tree and get closer to the raccoon in order to deliver a fatal shot. He looked at us as if seeking a volunteer. Since it was his suggestion, we asked him to go first. He agreed. We helped him climb to the first branch and then he slowly continued to climb higher. We had the flashlights on the raccoon.

     Paul stopped about fifteen feet from the raccoon, loaded a pellet, aimed and fired. The raccoon flinched and moved to a higher limb, as if seeking escape. Blood continued to drop to the ground. Paul fired again. The raccoon moved another two or three feet out on the tree limb.

     "Anyone else want to try?" Paul called to us.

     "I do," I answered.

      Paul climbed down and slid along the trunk until he hit the ground. I took the pellet gun and some pellets. The dog was in a frenzy, sniffing the blood in the leaves and jumping and running around the tree.

     Cliff cupped his hands under my heels, and I was up the tree and climbing. I got to the place where Paul had shot at the raccoon. Then I climbed a few more feet, loaded and fired.

     I knew I hit the raccoon. It slid as though it was falling off the side of the limb above me, but regained its footing and stayed on the limb. I loaded the gun again and aimed.

     Now something quite unexpected happened. The raccoon started to move toward me, actually climbing down until it was only ten feet from me. I was getting concerned. Raccoons weigh twenty-five pounds, sometimes more. They have big teeth and sharp claws. Suppose it was going to jump at me, attempting to escape?

     I heard Wayne shout, "Get closer!"

     I thought, "Is Wayne out of his mind?" At this point I was actually thinking retreat.

     Paul shouted, "Better shoot again."

     But the raccoon was getting so close that I could reach out and touch it with the tip of the barrel of the pellet gun. That's when I decided to hit the raccoon with the gun and attempt to knock it out of the tree. It was the raccoon or me, I thought in desperation. One of us will hit the ground.

     Swinging my right arm in the darkness, I hit the raccoon with the barrel of the gun and knocked it off the tree limb. It crashed with a thud to the ground, and the dog was on it immediately. The raccoon fought the dog as if it wasn't wounded. I quickly slid down the trunk of the tree.

     What an amazing sight! Two flashlights focused on the dog and the wounded raccoon, and the boys circling the combatants. Spot grabbed the raccoon by the throat and shook it several times, then pinned it to the ground. Suddenly the raccoon broke loose and tried to run, but Spot quickly caught it by the throat again and held it. The excitement was intense. The raccoon was grunting, the dog was growling, the leaves were flying around us as the animals fought.

     When the raccoon stopped fighting and appeared to be dead, the dog did not let go. Instead he continued to hold the raccoon by the neck and shake it. Cliff managed to get Spot by the collar, and I pulled the raccoon by the tail. The dog held the raccoon until Cliff slapped him on the butt and shouted, "Let go, damn it!"

     I pulled the raccoon away and swung its head as hard as I could against the trunk of the oak tree. I was following the example set by Mr. Zeliph on a previous hunt. We then hauled the dead raccoon out of the woods, taking turns holding it by the tail and dragging it along the ground. It was too heavy to hold up.

     When we reached Sprout Brook Road we no longer needed the aid of flashlights.  

     "Too bad we put so many holes in the fur," said Paul. "I don’t think we can sell it."

     "Isn't it worth a dollar fifty?" Wayne asked.

     "It's not even worth fifty cents," Paul answered. "We’ll just keep the tail."

     Paul took the raccoon home and left it in a hut near his house overnight. The next day we met at Paul's hut and I started to skin the raccoon. I stopped when we all realized it had too many pellet holes. So we cut off the tail and tied it with wire to a post above the hut, and threw the raccoon carcass further back in the woods for crows to eat.

     That raccoon tail was symbolic. We had declared that we were frontiersmen like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN—SKUNKED AT SPY POND

 

Spy Pond, Continental Village. Year, 2014.

     My experience hunting raccoons with Cliff Holmes and his grandfather led me to trap them as well as hunt them. Between the ages of 12 and 15 I became an avid young trapper and hunter. I read the monthly magazine "Fur, Fish and Game" from front cover to back cover, and learned how to make scented bait's for individual animals that I trapped. I borrowed old traps from Cliff Holmes and bought a few new traps.

     I recruited Paul Kuty and later his younger brother Raymond. Paul was my age, and he and his family lived on Putnam Road near the junction of Birch Lane. Paul's neighbor, Wayne Matthews, joined us on our hunting trips but I don't recall that he joined us on the trapline. He lived on Steuben Road.

     We used a pellet gun while hunting and trapping. I can't remember which of the boys owned the pellet gun. Our traps were baited and set to catch raccoons, mink and muskrats. In the early 1950's these animals thrived in Continental Village.

     Paul Kuty and I established a long trapline which stretched from the Beaver Pond north of the Monument to below the dam at Cortlandt Lake. We used size 1, 1 ½, and 2 metal jump traps. The first two sizes of traps were single coil spring, the larger size was double coil spring. We placed these traps in places where we thought there was a reasonable prospect of catching a muskrat, mink, or raccoon. One of the traps, I recall, was placed under an old apple tree near the cattails on Spy Pond. It is now an area of neatly manicured lawn down to the water's edge. The location was less than 30 feet from the place where I disabled a croaking bullfrog with a large rock on a whim.

     We thought that we could trap a raccoon because we saw raccoon footprints in the area. We used sardines for bait. It was autumn, and the mornings were cold.

     Paul and I did not check the traps at the Beaver Pond daily. We checked them every two or three days, usually after school or on weekends. Before getting on the school bus in the morning, we checked the traps that were distributed along Sprout Brook, Cortlandt Lake and Spy Pond. We woke up early, met near Paul's house on Putnam road, then walked our trapline.

     On the fateful cold morning that we discovered a skunk in our Spy Pond trap, Paul had the pellet gun. From a safe distance we loaded one pellet at a time and started to shoot at the trapped skunk. We took turns pumping and loading the pellet gun and then shooting.

     The skunk was still alive after a dozen shots hit it, but it had not sprayed us. We decided to get closer, within 15 feet. Paul pumped the pellet gun much more than required for the next shot. He hit the skunk in the head. The skunk leaped dramatically into the air, spun its tail toward us, sprayed a thick cloud of green-tinted vapor at us, then fell down and died.

     We were surprised. We looked at the skunk, then looked at each other. We knew that we had been hit with the spray. The stink was awful. Our eyes watered. The spray was on our skin and on our clothes. I don't remember the conversation that followed but it was colorful.

     We had been thoroughly skunked, and we had to go home and get ready for school. Paul pulled a hold-down stake from the trap chain loop, and dragged the trap and dead skunk, still held in the trap by a leg, along the ground to the road. I followed him.

     When we reached Highland Drive near Spy Pond outlet, we split. I ran home around the south end of Cortlandt Lake. Paul walked home around the north end of the lake, dragging the trap and skunk across a little wooden bridge over the inlet to the lake, then to Steuben Road and finally to his home on Putnam Road. He left the trap and skunk in the woods near his house.

     As I recall subsequent events, Paul's mother made him wash in the basement, then gave him a new set of clothes and coat. The stink of the skunk was still on his skin as he boarded the school bus and walked quickly past the bus driver, Mr. Frost. He settled in the back seat by himself. Mr. Frost had a head cold and did not smell Paul's newly acquired fragrance. A few of the students near the back of the bus did smell him, and they created a major stir as they took new seats near the front of the bus, laughing and joking about the "skunk in the back seat."

     I had a slightly different experience at home. My mother refused to let me in the house. She threw a towel and soap out the front door and told me to wash in the lake. The outside temperature was about 40 degrees F.  I knew that I would miss the bus if I went to the lake to clean up, so I hid near the small barn between my house and the Boyd's house until the bus arrived. Then I got on the bus, moved quickly to the back seat and joined Paul.  The voices of the children on the bus got noisier as the bus circled Gallows Hill and drove along Dogwood Road. "Phew!" and "Double phew!" and "Two rotten skunks in the back seat," and other comments considerably worse. Children were laughing and complaining as they crowded near the front of the school bus.

     When the bus reached the public elementary school, most of the students got off. The parochial students stayed on the bus for transport to Peekskill and Assumption School. But unlike all the other school mornings, this one was memorably different.

     The elementary school Principal came out from the school building to the school bus just as Mr. Frost was closing the bus door. He knocked on the door and Mr. Frost opened it. "Mr. Frost," he said, looking up and down the seats, "are there any students on this bus who smell like a skunk?" Not waiting for a reply from Mr. Frost, the principal walked past him until he came to me. "Aha!" he said triumphantly. “This is one of them. Stay in your seat, young man. Don't mingle." (As if I wanted to.) Then he walked to the front of the bus, scolded Mr. Frost, and told him to wait for another passenger. He went back into the school and came out with Paul Kuty. He put Paul on the bus, and told Mr. Frost to drive the two of us home after the Assumption School stop.

     Paul and I were pleased with the way it turned out. We had the day off—no school. It took three days and lots of scrubbing for the skunk odor on our bodies to disappear.

CHAPTER TEN—RECOGNITION AND TRIBUTE TO DR. BOOKBINDER

     My mother had allergies and asthma attacks during the time that she lived in Continental Village. So did I, but my allergies were not as severe as hers. Whenever her breathing was seriously impaired, my step-father or my brother John would call the doctor. In the late 1940's and 1950's, country doctors would get in their automobiles and drive to the patient’s house when there was a serious health condition such as a suspected heart attack or asthma attack.

     My mother's doctor lived in Peekskill. His name was Dr. Bookbinder. Receiving an urgent call he would leave his house immediately, day or night, and drive to our house in Continental Village about three miles distant. He parked on the side of Sprout Brook Road in front of our house, never in the driveway. He would walk to the front door carrying a large black doctor's bag. He was a short man, about 50 years old, and his head was partially bald. He wore a dark suit and white shirt, no tie.

     One of the children usually answered the door bell when Dr. Bookbinder arrived at our house. He would go directly to my mother's bedroom and when he entered his cordial greeting was, "Hello, sweetheart."

     He never discussed money for his services on the telephone. He did not write a bill at our house either. After examining my mother and providing treatment, Dr. Bookbinder simply leaned close to my mother's ear and said: "Eustelle, that will be $10 and it includes the cortisone shot. I'll put it on your account when I get back to the office (his home). You don’t have to pay me now."

     As I recall, she paid him once in cash on the spot. She was working for Reader's Digest in Pleasantville, N. Y., and she was receiving a salary of $35 each week.

CHAPTER NINE—HUNTING RACCOONS, AND DEALING WITH MR. SINGER

 

Photos of the Singer house on Sprout Brook Road, May, 2014.

     The following night Mr. Zeliph took Cliff and I and his coon dog Spot on an old-fashioned coon hunt. We got into the Mr. Zeliph's "woodie" station wagon at his house and Mr. Zeliph drove us toward Lake Celeste on the Old Albany Post Road. This dirt road had red stone mile markers every mile showing the distance from NYC. Many of the markers were still there in 1947, but ten years later most had disappeared. I knew a family that used them in CV as stepping stones leading up to the front door. They were turned face down so that the writing wasn’t visible. After driving several miles, Mr. Zeliph parked and let the dog out. Spot immediately dashed into the woods searching for a scent of raccoon.

     We stayed in the station wagon with the windows opened, listening for the dog's bark. After half an hour, Mr. Zeliph got restless and stepped outside. Cliff and I followed. No one spoke. We were listening intently.

     The night sky was patchy with clouds. Every now and then the stars could be seen. The moon was hiding somewhere behind those clouds. The wind stirred slightly. The temperature, as I recall, was close to freezing. We were all dressed warm enough, flannels and winter coats and boots. No hats. No gloves. Holding the .22 cal. rifle anywhere on the metal surface made one's hand cold. We waited and listened about fifteen minutes.

     "Did you hear that?" whispered Mr. Zeliph. We nodded. It was a distant series of dog barking and howling. If not Spot, perhaps another dog was barking from a house along the road further north. We strained to hear more clearly. The sound of barking faded or got louder depending on the direction of the wind. We knew that Mr. Zeliph could identify his dog's "voice" but we did not understand how. Cliff and I got to recognize it on future hunts.

     "That's Spot!" Mr. Zeliph announced. "He must be over a hill. We may have a long hike. C'mon!"

     Cliff and I followed Mr. Zeliph as he led us into the woods with a flashlight. We walked, stopped and listened, then continued to walk in the direction where we heard the dog barking. If you never walked through unfamiliar woods on a dark cold night with only a small flashlight held by the person in front of you for guidance, if you never had branches of brush and small trees snapping against your chilled face or whacking against your legs, if you never stumbled over unseen rocks on the ground, you may have to rely on my poor description to get a sense of it.

     It took us another half hour to reach the dog. We had climbed one hill, crossed a hollow, and climbed over another hill. Spot had treed a raccoon in a tall tree in a second hollow. No wonder we had trouble hearing him from the road. Moving excitedly near the base of the tree, alternately barking and howling and looking up, Spot was anxiously waiting for our appearance.

     Mr. Zeliph asked for the gun and Cliff gave it to him. It was a 1930's make of a Savage single-shot rifle. He loaded a .22 cal. long rifle cartridge into the chamber. "Who wants to shoot?" he said.

     After a moment of hesitation, Cliff reached for the gun, placed the butt against his shoulder and pointed it at the raccoon. Mr. Zeliph stood behind him and pointed the flashlight along the barrel and to the raccoon who was trying to hide near the top of the tree. We could see the raccoon whenever the clouds cleared and skylight became a backdrop. We could also see the raccoon looking down at us as the flashlight caught the raccoon's light-reflecting eyes from time to time.

     "Got a bead on it?" asked Mr. Zeliph.

     Cliff answered, "Yes."

     "Then shoot it!" the old man urged.

     Cliff pressed the trigger and the gun fired. The wounded raccoon moved or jumped slightly as it was hit. It did not fall. Instead it moved higher in the tree and settled in a new location.

      The dog was getting anxious. So was I. The old man reloaded the gun and asked me to shoot it. I did, with the same result. The raccoon climbed higher yet. We were sure it had been hit both times.  

     "Now it's my turn," said Mr. Zeliph. He reloaded the gun and aimed. I stood behind him with the flashlight, positioning the light across the v-notch and bead of his gun, framing the raccoon in the tree.

     Mr. Zeliph pressed the trigger, the gun fired, and instantly the raccoon tumbled from the tree to the ground. It was still alive, but before it could stand, the dog pounced on it and had it by the neck. Both dog and raccoon wrestled in the leaves as I pointed the flashlight on them. Mr. Zeliph rushed into the fray and grabbed the raccoon by the tail, while the dog continued to pull and bite. He yelled at the dog, and lifted Spot with his boot until the dog found himself airborne. When the dog released the raccoon, Mr. Zeliph slammed the struggling raccoon's head into the base of the tree. He repeated this action several times, swinging the raccoon by the tail until the animal was dead. The dog stood aside. Cliff and I watched. It was a dramatic sight and memorable, and it was over quickly.

     "Good dog, Spot," said Mr. Zeliph. "Time to go back," he told us.

     Cliff and I took turns carrying the raccoon as the successful hunting party returned through the woods to the station wagon. When we returned to the Zeliph's house, we weighed the raccoon on a large produce scale. It weighed about 25 pounds, as I recall. The next day Cliff and I skinned it. Since neither of us had any experience at this, we made several careless cuts in the fur with our Exacto knives. We did not know how to stretch the fur, or scrape it properly. Later that evening, returning from the water pump house, Mr. Zeliph provided a stretcher frame and showed us how to scrap the fat from the hide. He scraped a small section of the hide, showing us how to do it. He didn't criticize our sloppy work. He said: "This is your first raccoon hide. You'll do better next time."

     The raccoon's tail was unblemished. At the time period of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone TV shows, when so many kids were wearing raccoon hats, perhaps the hide was worth something. Cliff and I decided to sell it.

     The following day Cliff and I visited Singer's Fur Company on Sprout Brook Road, proudly carrying our raccoon fur. The hide was exposed on the stretcher, the scraping job inadequate, the cuts and three small bullet holes in the hide obvious on close inspection.

     Mr. Singer himself greeted us at the door and invited us into his warehouse. He was a tall man with a pleasant appearance, in his fifties or early sixties. He had white hair. He wore a shop apron over a dark suit. We saw stacks of furs— muskrat, mink, raccoon, ermine and fox being processed or stacked on shelves. Most were on hangers or stretchers, and they were completely dry. Some of the tags showed the name and address of the seller. I read Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Vermont and New York on the tags I could see.

     Mr. Singer bought these raw furs from various trappers in the Northeast, and sold them to the clothing industry in NYC. His beautiful white house was attached to a long garage-type warehouse. The raw furs arrived by mail and the processed furs were shipped by mail. There was a pond and swimming area on the southwest side of the house, and Sprout Brook, formerly Canopus Creek, flowed at the rear of the property.

     Mr. Singer was very businesslike and professional during our visit. He inspected our fur and ran his ungloved fingers into the cuts in the hide. He studied the tail. His face did not exhibit any criticism or concern. Rather, he seemed genuinely interested in the fur we were trying to sell him. We listened attentively as he questioned us.

     "Where did you shoot this raccoon?" he asked, running his finger into one of three bullet holes on the hide. 

     "We shot it in the woods west of the road to Lake Celeste," Cliff answered.

     "Looks like a big one," he said. "How much did it weigh?"

     "25 pounds," I answered proudly.

     "It has excellent color, and the fur is thick," he said. "Of course, there are a few small cuts here and there."

      Cliff and I felt the sale of the fur falling through the cracks in the warehouse floor. We said nothing in reply.

     "You boys will learn to do a better job with your next raccoon. Make sure to stretch it tight and dry it."

      "Yes, sir," we answered.

     "Well, I can definitely use the tail," he said. Our hearts jumped. "I’ll pay you $1.50. Is that a deal?"

     "Yes, sir," both of us replied.

     He walked over to a deep sink and washed his hands, wiping them dry on his shop apron. He asked for our names, ages, and where we lived. We answered his questions eagerly. He took out his wallet and gave us one dollar, then reached in his pocket and handed us fifty cents.

     "Thanks," we said happily. The underlying tension of the deal was gone, and Cliff and I felt relief.

     He led us to the door. Mr. Singer smiled and we smiled back. "Goodbye and good luck," he said. 

     As soon as we were outside and the door closed behind us, we spoke excitedly about the money. We both wondered why he had paid us so much for the damaged fur. We did not expect $1.50.

     "He must have liked it," I said. "Why would he pay so much for it?"

     "Maybe it's worth more than we figured," Cliff replied.

     We agreed on that probability. Not until I was much older, when my memory of the event was rekindled, did I realize that this generous and thoughtful man, Mr. Singer, a furrier living and working on Sprout Brook Road, had presented Cliff and I with an unexpected gift, which gave us so much hope and joy. Except for the raccoon tail, the raccoon hide we sold him had no value.