Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [40]
Douglas, for his part, was disconcerted. He had not expected to walk into an audience. Rather uncertainly he held the squirrel up for inspection, in case anybody wanted a closer look.
Mr. Bridge knew he was expected to judge the situation. A gun, a hunter, a dead animal. But because he did not know exactly how he felt, he did not know what attitude to take; he felt only the presence of his wife and his daughter forcing him toward a resolution with his son. This silent female insistence annoyed him. He spoke to his son sharply: “Now that you’ve shot it, what do you intend to do with it?”
Douglas thought this over. Then he said, “Can’t we eat him?”
Carolyn made a face and a gagging noise.
“We have meat enough for the table,” said Mr. Bridge.
“I was thinking if we wanted him we could fix a stew, maybe. Only I want his pelt.”
“So you think you are going to skin it, do you?”
Douglas murmured and nodded. He jiggled the squirrel, and another drop of blood sank into the snow.
Mr. Bridge felt the increasing pressure of the two women. They were not going to speak. They were going to wait. They had done this before when they disapproved of something. According to them, a little animal had been killed for no reason, that was all there was to it. They understood nothing beyond that, and they wanted the killer punished. But Mr. Bridge began to feel the obstinate power of his son opposing them with the male conviction that it is right to kill animals. Now he was expected to rule in favor of one of these philosophies.
To his son he said, “Have you ever tried to skin a squirrel? ”
Douglas answered that he had cleaned fish. He and his friends with the reluctant assistance of grasshoppers and worms had pulled a number of small perch and sunfish out of Crystal Lake. A few of these specimens were large enough to eat, so Harriet had fried them for his lunch.
“Cleaning a fish is not the same as skinning a squirrel,” said Mr. Bridge.
Then Douglas grew stubborn. “How do you know? Did you ever skin one?”
Mr. Bridge replied that he had.
“Well, I can too,” the boy said, and he held the dead squirrel confidently. At his belt was a Boy Scout sheath knife.
“What will you do after that?”
“What do you mean?”
“What will you do with the skin?”
“I’ll stretch it on a board and hang it in my room.”
“Oh no,” his mother said. “Oh, no, you will not, young man. I put my foot down.”
“No?” he asked with a challenging expression. “No?” he repeated. “How come? He’s mine, isn’t he? I killed him, so he belongs to me. I can do anything I want with him.”
“Eat it,” Carolyn said. “The fur and the claws and the tail and the ears and everything else. I hope you choke. I hope you die.”
“Nobody wants to listen to you,” he muttered. “Get lost.”
“Take his gun away and don’t give him any allowance.”
Mrs. Bridge put one arm around Carolyn’s shoulders. “Now, now, just calm down. Your father will do whatever is best.”
Mr. Bridge said, “Suppose you and I strike a bargain, son. I will allow you to skin the squirrel, and you do as you please with the skin. Tack it to a board and hang it in your room, if you wish. However, there is one condition.”
Douglas looked up at him suspiciously.
Mr. Bridge folded his arms and went on: “You must leave it there until I say you may get rid of it.”
“Is that all?”
“That is the condition.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch.”
Douglas thought this over. He poked some holes in a snowdrift with the muzzle of his gun. At last he said, “What happens if it starts to stink up my room?”
“You heard me. You will keep it until you have my permission to throw it away.”
Douglas’ eyes suddenly filled with tears. He gave the elm tree a savage kick, and he said just loud enough to be heard, “I guess I can bury it somewhere.”
46 Happy Days
Now another year was ending. The year had been good and he regretted the end of it, but he felt pleased that it was concluding without sickness in the family and with indications that the worst of the Depression might be over. The children were growing up nearly