Coon

There was a man named Steed who worked in The United Gas machine shop with Daddy for a while. They both liked to hunt and fish and became good friends and hunted and fished a lot together. The Steeds had one son, David, who was 4 or 5 years older than me. He always hunted and fished with his dad as I did with mine so we became reasonably good friends. I was 13 or 14 at the time.

One fall we went to the Sabine river bottoms to hunt. We went down the road that went by Ira LaGrone’s house to a gas well that was close to the river. We all split up and hunted but for some reason David and I had returned to where the car was parked before our dads returned. We were just messing around and found a young raccoon.

David caught it and ask his dad if he could keep it. Mr. Steed made a mistake and said yes.

At first the little coon was cute but as it grew it got meaner and you had to be a little careful with it. It also got into every thing and had to be kept in a cage.

One day Mr. and Mrs. Steed had gone somewhere and David and I had gone to Little Creek fishing. By coincidence we returned to their house about the time the older Steeds returned. When we walked into the kitchen there was such a mess as you never want to see.

The coon had got out of his cage and somehow opened the screen door (no one closed or locked their doors at Latex then). He had opened cabinet doors and pulled things out. At that time everyone had a sack of flour and a sack of meal and other things bought in bulk. Evidently the lid on the syrup bucket had jarred loose when it fell off the cabinet and hit the floor. Unless you had seen it, you can hardly imagine how one little animal made such a mess.

Mrs. Steed was not happy and the raccoon was not to be welcome anywhere within her sight ever again. She used a word or two that I didn’t know ladies were suppose to know.

David was instructed in no uncertain terms to get rid of the animal. We were glad to leave and take it down to the creek to turn it loose. Actually I wonder what poor Mr. Steed had to hear while we were gone.

Hats Off! to Wetzel LaGrone for his story.