None of us Sacketts ever had enough money to do much harm.
We harvested a lean corn crop off a side-hill Tennessee farm.
By hunting wild game we earned what clothes we wore.
The fur hides of the wild animals was our store.
We learned how to trade our hids for meal and syrup and more.
And mama read to us from the Good Book every day,
Therefore,  we almost never cheated, nor swore.
The riches of our family were awesome in some way.

In our daily hunts we would get mostly rabbits, muskrats, and coons.
Sometimes we would get lucky and get us a bear.
Spotting the tracks of a big one never came too soon.
Often we had a settle for a lean mountain hair.
And we were satisfied with our skills,
Only when we were able to have all our kills  by noon.

I will never forget the time Ole Grisly treed our brother, Orrin.
That bear caught us nine miles from home without our rifle.
Now for a bear as big as this one, it was useless to run.
Trying to stay out of his reach was no fun.
When it came to letting us know how he felt,
That big bear did not trifle.
For a long time he successfully resisted our efforts to stifle.

When someone, like Orrin,  tries to play with a bear’s cub,
All “you know what”  breaks loose for those in range of the big one.
He was determined to get to Orrin in the branches of a  persimmon.
When throwing rocks did not run him away, we each cut us a club.
When Tyrel closed in on him from before,
I lamblassed him from behind where I could score.
Time to time we would to rest and advise Orrin some more.

Finally, that old bear got disgusted and walked away.
Then Orrin came down, and we hurredly went toward town,
To the dance at Skunk Hollow School,
Where we found the best looking girls in the USA.
There Orrin played his music, sitting on a stool,
Because “old grisly” got part of his pants in their duel.

*L’Amour, Louis. End Of The Drive(Bantam Books, New York), pp. 55,56.