the other toes, and it is the imprint
of this member that looks so strange. The under side of the foot is as
naked as the human hand, and this adds to the novel look of the track in
the snow.

Late in the fall, my hired man set a trap in a hole in hopes of catching
a skunk, but instead he caught a possum by one of its fore feet. The
poor thing was badly crippled, and he kept it in a barrel for a couple
of weeks and fed it, to try and make amends for the injury he had done.
Then he gave it its freedom, though the injured foot had healed but
little.

Soon after he set his trap in the same hole, and to his annoyance caught
the possum again, this time by one of the hind feet. He brought the
quiet, uncomplaining creature to me by its prehensile tail, and asked me
what should be done with or for it. I concluded to make a hospital for
it in one corner of my study. I made it a nest behind a pile of
magazines, and fed and nursed it for several weeks. It never made a
sound, or showed the least uneasiness or sign of suffering, that I was
aware of, in all that time. By day it slept curled up in its nest. If
disturbed, it did not "play possum," that is, did not feign sleep or
death, but opened its mouth and grinned up at you in a sort of comical,
idiotic way. At night it hobbled about the study, and ate the meat and
cake I had placed for it. Sometimes by day it would come out of the
corner and eat food under the lounge, eating very much after the manner
of a pig, though not so greedily. Indeed, all its motions were very
slow, like those of the skunk.

The skin of the opossum is said to be so fetid that a dog will not touch
it. A dog is always suspicious of an animal that shows no fear and makes
no attempt to get out of his way. This fetidness of the opossum is not
apparent to my sense.

After a while my patient began to be troublesome by climbing upon the
book-shelves and inspecting the books, so I concluded to discharge him
from the hospital. One night I carried him to the open door by his tail,
put him down upon the door-sill, and told him to go forth. He hesitated,
looked back into the warm room, then out into the winter night, then
thought of his maimed feet, and of traps in holes where unsuspecting
possums live, and could not reach a decision. "Come," I said, "I have
done all I can for you; go forth and shift for yourself." Slowly, like a
very old man, he climbed down out of the door and disappeared in the
darkness. I have