Live Free and Draw

“The boys” cook up a clever plan to secure some cider from (and play a culinary joke on) Mrs. Wadleigh…

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Great greasy gut-strings, some of these animal tales are downright ghastly!  What an unsatisfying joke; “in bad taste,” you might even say…

On the other hand, I suppose they ARE hunting stories after all; there are bound to be some ravenous slaughters involved.  These tales also tell us a lot about the place of local food & food-finding in people’s lives.

And the place of alcohol, too.  (In the days before refrigeration, we can assume all cider to be what we now call “hard” cider.)  Modern listeners might be surprised by the amount of spiritous imbibery undertaken in these hunting tales, but perhaps that (our surprise, not the drinking) is a measure of the success of the temperance movements of the 1800s and early 1900s.  Perhaps it also is what led to the wildest, most successful, best-remembered (sometimes) hunting tales.

While this story has no date, I’m placing it in the 1800s… Does anyone know when Judy Wadleigh lived in Weare?  She doesn’t appear in Little‘s biographical sketches.