story of my youth

My nephew and myself were always busy up into the evening during summer vacation, sometimes we would be snake hunting or off building a cabin in the woods or maybe even building some elaborate trap to catch the unseen wild beasts that must live in the holler. We would always get up early, throw on our raggedy pants and shirt which was the only items we wore and head to the spring to retrieve the water needed for the day, eat breakfast and ask if anything else was needed before we took off down crawdad holler stopping off at the barn which was just out of sight of the house. In the barn we had our secret supply of "jaw backer" or otherwise known as chewing tobacco. When would then remove our shirts so all that was left between us and god was our patched and ragged pants, and down the holler we would go, only to return just before dark. This was our daily ritual performed just like clock work on everyday except Thursday because that was the day when Grizzly Adams would come on TV at 7:00 pm and we had to be home and cleaned up before we could watch it, which was easier said than done because most times we would have evidence of the days activity all over us and since we had no running water we had to bring in water to bathe with.
On one particular Thursday we were watching Grizzly Adams with my father and Grizzly Adams was walking the mountain over destroying a rogue trapper's snare traps, I looked over at my nephew and said, "boy oh boy I wish we knew how to make them traps we could catch anything", he replied with a "yeah, that would be somthin". My father was listening to our conversation at which time he told us that he could teach us how to make a snare trap. Of course at every commercial break from that point on we would beg him to teach us how until he finally agreed.
I opened my eyes Friday morning and gouged my nephew with my elbow and a few moments later we were half way through with the morning chores after breakfast we looked at my dad who was already smiling and as he stood up he said "well boys lets go make a snare trap". The three of us went out the front door and straight into the woods, which was only fifty foot from the front of our house as we walked he explained to us the importance of choosing the right trees and vines to use ,he began the task of teaching us. My father would stop the instructions from time to time when we would tell him some of the wild animals we were going to catch and each time he stopped, he was fighting hard to keep from laughing although we did not know that at the time.
Once my father was sure he had taught us enough he went back to the house to get ready for work, leaving us there in the woods to hone our snare making skills. Sometime in the afternoon a plan began to form and a short time after the plan was complete, we rarely wasted time planning we were much happier with action.
Finally he last one was set and just in time too because it was almost dark. Now the way we figured there were eight traps set throughout crawdad holler and in the morning we would have several fierce beasts hanging from their feet just begging us to cut them down.
My mother had a curious look on her face when she had absolutely no problem whatsoever getting us to go to bed, as a matter of fact she had not even completed the sentence, "okay boys time for ......" and we were already scrambling up the steps. We lay there in the dark with all the intentions of going to sleep but our imaginations would not let us. Finally after we were almost exhausted we drifted off.
The morning came and we were speeding through our chores faster than ever before, all the while thinking there were nine wild beasts hanging by their feet waiting to be cut down. The two of us inhaled our breakfast and off we went to check the traps. We were surprised when we came to the first trap to see that nothing was hanging from the vine, but we figured there would be animals in the rest of them but as we went from empty trap to empty trap we began to realize that we would not be dragging any grizzly bears home. We finally came to the last empty trap and I looked at my nephew and said "we must be doin something wrong, maybe we need more practice, but practice with live game". "what game would we use?" he asked, "chickens" I said proudly, with a new mission in mind we made a bee line for the hen house. We had at least forty chickens of all different breeds and they were all gathering around the hen house waiting for cracked corn that was normally tossed to them. After setting a snare as close to the hen house as possible, we rushed into the house to tell my mother that she didn't have to feed the chickens today, we would do it for her. Although she thought it was a little odd she shrugged her shoulders and went on with her day. We grabbed the butter bowl of cracked corn and ran back to the hen house. We threw small amounts of corn out leading the chickens towards the nearby woods where we had a snare trap set. It was not long before we snared one and there she hung by the feet.
The two of us were having the time of our lives snaring first one chicken then another, that is until it happened, one hen with questionable intelligence was snared as many others were but she was not snared by the feet, instead she was jerked off the ground by her neck. I was in shock, we tried to get her loose but it was already too late, she was gone and it was our fault.....chicken killers, that's what we were. We tore the snare trap down and laid the hen on the ground between us and just stared at her, because we had never killed a chicken before and when they die its very violent far too violent for the two of us. After some time had past we dug a hole right there in the woods and buried the hen, then we made a double blood brother swear, which was the swear of all swears that could never be broken or it was immediate death to never build another snare trap as long as we live, and thirty years have passed since that day and neither one of us has.