Raccoons
Above: Raccoon Tracks, September 21, 2018
Nellie M. Pairpoint (1866-1934)
“The corn was in ideal condition, tender and milky, and they fell to work with a will. They tore the ears down and trampled the stalks, destroying more than they could eat; but when they raided the corn field, they did it well, for it was stripped of its husks. It was carried down to the pond and washed. It was plunged into the water and trampled upon and turned over with those ever-restless paws, until it appeared to be covered with mud. But then it seemed to them to be in the most desirable condition.”
This selection, which I read for the 60th LibriVox Short Nonfiction Collection, is a short children’s story about raccoons written by Nellie Pairpoint for the St. Nicholas Magazine . Anybody in the Midwest who has tried vegetable gardening can attest to Paipoint’s vivid description of raccoon behavior! Pairpoint was a talented painter and book illustrator, as well as a children’s book author, and she made the drawing of a raccoon family which appears above. The photograph of raccoon tracks in the mud is mine.
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