I needed a haircut, so it was off to Ron's Barbershop to get one. Bill Mitchell was there, along with a couple of other customers. Bill had his back turned, so he didn't see me come in. I sat down and picked up the paper. I began to read and try to listen to Bill at the same time. Bill was waxing eloquent about some hogs he had picked up for his boys at a processing plant over in Green Forest. He was talking to Freddy Reinhardt.
Just about then Bill turned and saw me.
"Hey Sam, what are you up to? Have you got your material for next week's column all lined up?" he queried.
"Yeah, I plan to write about squirrels again. I noticed CBS Sunday Morning had a special report on Bentonville's Squirrel Cook-off. It was an interesting report. Besides, I took another one of my grandsons squirrel hunting. I think I'll call my article, 'Squirrel, the Other, Other, Other, White Meat."
"I saw that show, too," Bill said. "It was interesting."
"Speaking of squirrel hunting", Freddy said, "When I was just a young boy we had a collie dog that liked to hunt squirrels. One day my dad casually mentioned that our dog was probably the best squirrel dog in Benton County. I was impressed. I knew the dog could hunt, but I never would have thought she was the best squirrel dog in the whole county."
Freddy looked at Bill. "Do you remember that old store over across the way where the old men used to sit out front and whittle?" he asked. "When I was a boy, I always enjoyed listening to the old men tell their stories."
"Is that why you come in here?" Ron asked.
"Yes, it is", Freddy said, "I come in here for the stories. Only, it's harder to find old men than it used to be."
We all laughed at that and Freddy continued, "Well, anyway, I was listening to these old men talking, and you know how boys are. I casually mentioned that we had the best squirrel dog in Benton County. One of the old men asked me what kind of dog we had. I told him it was a collie, which elicited a chorus of snickers amongst the whittlers. Then he asked me a weird question. 'Does your dog have a long tail or a short tail?' I said she had a long tail. 'That's too bad,' he said. He didn't offer to elaborate, but my curiosity got the best of me. 'What's the deal with the tail,' I asked him. He said, 'Well, it's a well-known fact that a short-tailed dog is three times the hunter that a long-tailed dog is.'
"I didn't know that," Freddy told us. "Hearing that old man say that definitely piqued my interest. I figured that if our dog was the best squirrel dog in Benton County with a long tail, she would surely be the best squirrel dog in all of Arkansas with a short tail. So, the first time our folks left the farm, my brothers and I caught that dog and stuck her tail through a knot hole in the barn wall. My brother Dan was on the outside holding the dog still while I had a hold of her tail on the inside. My brother Don had an old, dull butcher knife. He went to work on that dog's tail and I can tell you that dog sat up and began to pay attention. She like to of eaten Ol' Dan alive out there where he was trying to hold her down. He couldn't hold her anymore and she got away.
"Well, we didn't see her for two or three days, which wasn't uncommon. Finally, my dad was able to call her in to him. When she got close, he saw this large, scabbed-over place on her tail. He told my mom, 'Look here, Honey, this dog has got into a fight with a varmint and it almost bit her tail off.'
"Well, us boys figured, if Dad wanted to believe that's what happened to the dog, it was fine with us. We never told him what we had done to make her a better squirrel dog."
Freddy looked at each of us in turn.
"At least, we didn't tell him then," he said. "Years later --in fact, I think it was probably 20 years later -- we were all together as a family. Us boys were all married by then. We were all sitting around the dining table just chewing the fat when Dad asked us if we remembered that old dog we used to have. Well, my brothers and I looked at each other and smiled knowingly. We began to chuckle among ourselves.
"Dad looked kind of puzzled. 'What's so funny,' he asked. I guess we figured that, after 20 years, it was safe to tell him what we had done, or at least tried to do, to that dog of his. Dad never smiled or said a word until we had finished. He looked at each one of us intently, and then he said something I will never forget. He said, 'I wish I had my old leather reins. I'd whip the tar out each one of you!' And he meant it, too."
We all had a good laugh at Freddy's story. It was amusing. But I have to say I marvel at how that old timer, sitting and whittling on a stick, was able to set up a young boy like Freddy. He must have been a pretty good student of human nature.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and weekly contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 12/09/2015