Dinner

We were just talking about that very thing, how if you were ever struck in the face by a beaver's tail the way the surface of some meandering river is--home to three generations of innocent swimmers, gentle nourisher of nine-hole courses--your eyes would widen; until now you hadn't realized the terror of the world. Yes, and my neighbour's daughter had left a stack of fenceposts out back of his place a while ago. "Did you get the fenceposts, dad?" she asked later. "What fenceposts?" he said. Turns out the beavers had hauled off every one. Worse, the timber turned up a week later in a fancy new dam all the way over on the east side of town. With a crude sign chewed into a length of poplar: Timber Courtesy the Bamfords.

But that's old news. It's been common in these parts to steal a couple of chickens, then invite the people you stole them from over for chicken dinner.