he image of my fate and my condition in a
badger-like creature close at hand.

For the carpenter who is at work upon bridal repairs in my house has
the fancy not uncommon among a class hereabouts to keep a tamed
raccoon. He brings it with him daily, and fastens it by its chain to a
tree in my front yard: a rough, burly, knowing fellow, loving wild
nature, but forced to acquire the tediousness of civilization; meantime
leading a desperately hampered life; wondering at his own teeth and
claws, and sorely put to it to invent a decent occupation. So am I;
and as the raccoon paces everywhere after the carpenter, so do I in
spirit pace everywhere after Georgiana; only his chain seems longer and
more easily to be broken. The restless beast enlivens his captivity by
the keenest scrutiny of every object within his range; I too have
busied myself with the few people that have come this way.

First, early in the month, Georgiana's brother--down from West Point,
very stately, and with his brow stern, as if for gory war. When I
called promptly to pay my respects, as his brother-in-law to be, he was
sitting on the front porch surrounded by a subdued family, Georgiana
alone remaining unawed. He looked me over indifferently, as though I
were a species of ancient earthworks not worth any more special
reconnoissance, and continued his most superior remarks to his mother
on the approaching visit of three generals.

Upon leaving I invited him to join me on the morrow in a squirrel hunt
with smooth-bores, whereupon he manifested surprise that I was
acquainted with the use of fire-arms. Whereupon I remarked that I
would sometimes hit big game if it were so close that I could not miss
it, and further urged him to have breakfast with me at a very early
hour in order that we might reach the woods while the squirrels were at
theirs.

Going home, I knocked at the cabin where Jack and Dilsy lay snoring
side by side with the velocity of rival saw-mills, and begged Dilsy to
give me a bite about daybreak--coffee and corn-batter cakes--saying
that I could get breakfast when I returned. I shared this scant bite
with my young soldier--to Dilsy's abject mortification, I not having
told her of his coming. Then we set off at a brisk pace towards a
great forest south of the town some five miles away, where the
squirrels had appeared and were doing great damage, being the last of a
countless plague of them that overran northern and central Kentuc