The Chronicles of Major Peabody Read online

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  In the Beginning

  Woodcock - 1

  Fiction is Stranger than Truth

  Bear Story

  Experts

  Dog’s Best Friend

  Animal Rights

  It’s Hell to Grow Old

  Shame

  Homo Homoni Lupus

  Woodcock - 2

  Gun Control

  Misdirection

  The Three Little Pigs

  Rara Avis

  Educating Bruce Golightly

  Oh, the Humanity of It All

  Quack, Quack, Quack

  A Philosophic Interlude

  Another Bear Story

  Carl Wussow’s Spring Pond

  You Can’t Win

  Look for the Silver Lining

  Adversity

  Surprise

  Save the Environment

  A Christmas Carol

  Ground Swatting

  Vengeance Is Mine Saith Peabody

  October Song

  Impressions

  Equality

  Exercise

  Nightmare

  It’s Not All Roses

  Other books by Galen Winter

  Back cover

  The Chronicles of

  Major Peabody

  The Questionable Adventures

  of a Wily Spendthrift,

  a Politically Incorrect Curmudgeon,

  an Unprincipled Wagerer and

  an Obsessive Bird Hunter

  by

  Galen Winter

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  The Chronicles of Major Peabody: The Questionable Adventures of a Wily Spendthrift, a Politically Incorrect Curmudgeon, an Unprincipled Wagerer and an Obsessive Bird Hunter

  Copyright ©2012 by Galen Winter

  ISBN-13 978-1-927360-84-2

  First Edition

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Winter, Galen, 1926-2012

  The chronicles of Major Peabody [electronic resource] : the questionable adventures of a wily spendthrift, a politically incorrect curmudgeon, an unprincipled wagerer and an obsessive bird hunter / written by Galen Winter – 1st ed.

  Short stories having first appeared in Shooting sportsman magazine.

  ISBN 978-1-927360-84-2

  Also available in print format.

  1. Hunting stories, American. I. Title.

  PS3573.I53675 C47 2009 813'.54 C2009-901226-X

  Additional cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

  The stories contained herein were first published in Shooting Sportsman magazine.

  Extreme care has been taken to ensure that all information presented in this book is accurate and up to date at the time of publishing. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Additionally, neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Publisher:

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  www.ccbpublishing.com

  Dedication

  For their assistance in funding his future hunting and fishing expeditions, the author gratefully acknowledges and sincerely thanks everyone who buys this book.

  In the Beginning

  I had been with the Smythe, Hauser, Engels & Tauchen law firm for nearly two years. During my Law School studies, I took every Contracts and contract related course offered by the university. I enjoyed that field of law and my grades showed it. The Smythe firm hired me and I specialized in Trusts and Estate Planning. I drafted Trusts Agreements and used my imagination in meeting the objectives and instructions of my clients. Frankly, I recall being pleased with my work.

  When one is a young attorney in a large and prestigious Philadelphia Law Office, it can be dangerous to use one’s imagination. The rules for advancement in such law firms are: sit down, keep your mouth shut, be pleasant to the men above you in the chain of command and don’t become a threat to them by using your imagination. I was, therefore, somewhat concerned when called into the office of Mr. Robertson Smythe, the firm’s senior partner.

  Mr. Smythe asked me if I had plans for luncheon. I managed to say “Well, ah” before he told me to cancel them. I was sure I was about to be fired, told to clean out my desk and be gone within the hour. Instead Mr. Smythe handed me about ten inches of files, told me to study them and be back in his office at 11:45 for lunch. That visit to Mr. Smythe’s office was the watershed moment of my career. The files he gave me represented the work Mr. Smythe did for William Henry Peabody.

  The Peabody family had been in the New World since Jamestown was founded. They looked upon the Mayflower people as Johnny-Come-Latelys. During the following four hundred years, the Peabody fortunes grew - at first from tobacco, then cotton and, for the past one hundred and fifty years, through banking and international commercial en-deavors. The family reputation and its services as diplomats and philanthropists had a paralleled growth.

  At our luncheon, Mr. Smythe told me he reviewed every trust document I had drafted during my first two years in the firm. He “found them interesting”. Then he told me about Major Nathaniel Peabody, the only son of William Henry Peabody.

  Nathaniel Peabody was born in Bogotá, Colombia, the son of the U S Embassy’s First Secretary and the daughter of a Peruvian landowner who enjoyed a name and a reputation equal to that of the Peabody family. Every family has its black sheep. Nathaniel Peabody assumed that responsibility and was spectacularly successful in performing the duties of the office.

  His special abilities in the Black Sheep Department were early recognized and he was sent to a succession of military academies in the United States in an effort to correct the lad’s profligate and rebellious nature – “straighten him out” was the phrase the elder Peabody used.

  Nathaniel looked upon the military academies’ attempts to “straighten him out” as challenges and he behaved accordingly. After a single year of experience with him, each school admitted defeat and asked the elder Peabody to transfer him to another institution. One school Commandant recommended Nathaniel be transferred to a particular institution that required arrest, trial and a finding of “Guilty” as qualifications for admission.

  During his school vacations and whenever he elected to shun attendance at the military academies, Nathaniel visited his uncle, Calhoun Peabody. Uncle Calhoun lived in Georgia and had already disgraced the family by entering a trade. He had become a realtor during the Depression of the 1930’s.

  Due to widespread foreclosures, many Georgia farms had been abandoned and were owned by banks and insurance companies. Of course, the new owners wanted to sell the properties, but there were few buyers and, then unoccupied, the farm buildings slowly deteriorated.

  To keep that deterioration (and the allied probability of depredation) to a minimum, the land was always “posted” by the new owners. The local sheriffs, thankful for insurance company and banker contributions to their re-election efforts, were more than happy to patrol the properties and drive off all trespassers – be they hobos seeking shelter in falling down farm houses or reasonably respectable characters like Calhoun Peabody.

  Calhoun freely admitted he had disappointed Great Aunt Aurora by entering a trade. There was a valid reason for his decision to become what Great Aunt Aur
ora called “a common dealer in real estate”. As a realtor, Uncle Calhoun was able to convince the banks and insurance companies to allow him unlimited access to their foreclosed properties in order to show them to prospective buyers.

  Calhoun Peabody was wily. He had an ulterior motive. He was a dedicated, confirmed, and inveterate quail hunter. Those abandoned farms held great coveys of quail and Uncle Calhoun often walked the fields - accompanied not by a prospective buyer, but by an English Setter named George III and a twenty gauge shotgun loaded with 7 1/2 chill shot.

  When he first visited Uncle Calhoun, Nathaniel Peabody was a rebellious and irresponsible young man, completely disinterested in his family’s social position, unable to manage his finances and without any direction to his life.

  Under Uncle Calhoun’s tutelage, Nathaniel remained a rebellious and irresponsible young man, completely dis-interested in his family’s social position and unable to manage his finances, but he developed a purpose - an unwavering interest that gave direction to his life. It was Uncle Calhoun who taught him about the joys of shotgun hunting in general and of quail hunting in particular. Like his uncle Calhoun, Nathaniel Peabody became a dedicated, confirmed, deceptive, cunning, tricky and inveterate bird hunter.

  When the War started, Nathaniel joined the U S Army and, due to his fluency in the Spanish language (and, possibly through family reputation), he served as military attaché to a number of American Embassies scattered around the world. He retired only a few months before our senior partner, Mr. Robertson Smythe, invited me to lunch and gave me the assignment of preparing the William Henry Peabody Spendthrift Trust. Of course, the beneficiary of that Spendthrift Trust was Major Nathaniel Peabody.

  Mr. Smythe instructed me to write the document in the strictest of terms with no possibility of any kind of alienation or prepayment of monthly remittances and, above all, a trust document so clearly written that it could not be challenged in court. I did so. Then the elder Peabody died.

  My first meeting with Major Nathaniel Peabody, USA (ret.) was, I’m sure, a disappointment to him. He expected to receive a lump sum distribution from his father’s substantial estate. As I recall it, the first time he entered my office he immediately inquired if a partial distribution (as he put it - “a mere pittance of say twenty-five or fifty thousand dollars”) might be made before the final settlement of the estate. I told him he would receive no lump sum disbursement either before or after the final settlement of his father’s estate and that he was the beneficiary of a Spendthrift Trust with quite definite terms.

  When the Major recovered from the shock, he asked if a prepayment of a few month remittances might be made. Of course, I refused. I told him no prepayment of any kind could be made. I further advised him that the terms of the Trust document specifically directed the Trustee to give him a check on the first day of each month – and not a single second sooner.

  Over the course of the next month, I received communications from two other Philadelphia law firms, each inquiring about the terms of the Peabody Spendthrift Trust. I sent them copies of the document and never officially heard from them again. Informally, both complimented me on the tight structure and clear wording of the document. However, I must admit I made one serious error in draftsmanship.

  Peabody came to my office and made one more plea for a partial lump sum settlement. I denied his request. Then he asked for an early delivery of his next scheduled remittance. Again, I denied his request. I told him the terms of the Spendthrift Trust had to be strictly applied, without variation whatsoever. The Major repeated those words - “strictly applied, without variation whatsoever”. He then pointedly mentioned the Trust provision that required the Trustee to deliver a monthly check to the Trust beneficiary.

  Without another word, he turned and left my office.

  I was thunderstruck. I sat for a moment in shocked silence. I picked up the Spendthrift Trust document, read it very carefully and immediately went to Mr. Robertson Smythe’s office suite. I was concerned, but Mr. Smythe only smiled.

  “You drafted the Trust Agreement,” he said. “You are the Trustee. You have to live with its terms. The Major’s interpretation is correct. You must personally deliver the Trust remittances to Peabody on the first day of the month. I’m sure you will handle it with your usual efficiency.”

  Then he smiled again and arose from behind his desk. It was his way of suggesting the interview was over and that I might want to leave his office. I left his office.

  Since that date, Major Nathaniel Peabody and I have been joined at the hip – the place where he keeps his usually empty wallet. On the first day of every one of the following months, I have been required to personally deliver the Major’s Trust remittances. I believe Peabody purposely arranges to be hunting on the first day of nearly every month. I believe he purposely arranges to be hunting in some God forsaken place like the Argentine Patagonia or the Canadian wilderness or the Nicaraguan out-back or Arkansas.

  I am a city boy. Hunting dogs do not like me. I am afraid of them and they bark at me. I do not like the woods or the animals that live in them. I am afraid of wild bears and I am afraid of firearms. The thought of encountering a rattlesnake or a bear in the woods fills me with a panic terror and I am grateful for the strength of the sphincter muscles in my lower abdomen.

  I became a lawyer to raise my standard of living. I expected to develop the life style of people who live in upper class suburbs, where they sometimes dress for dinner and can enjoy the advantages of urban culture. I didn’t expect to find myself spending at least one day a month in the company of men dressed in old wool shirts or trying to sleep in a cabin smelling of wood smoke or freezing inside a tent, protected from midnight marauding, vicious animals by nothing more than a thin sheet of plastic.

  I didn’t expect to find myself saddled with the job of personally delivering the Major’s Spendthrift Trust remittances on the first day of every month, regardless of the uncivilized bear or snake infested part of the world in which he might decide to find himself.

  Mr. Robertson Smythe thinks it’s funny.

  Woodcock - 1

  After giving me directions to get from the airport to the camp and reminding me (unnecessarily) that delivery of his Spendthrift Trust remittance was due in two days, Major Nathaniel Peabody left for northern Maine where he joined others intent upon pursuing the Ruffed Grouse. I arrived in the camp in the late afternoon of the last day of the month and found him and Doctor Carmichael seated at the cabin’s kitchen/dining/poker table. I had barely enough time to unpack and, with some alarm, view the height and condition of the upper bunk that I would occupy when a third hunter entered the cabin.

  I didn’t know this man, but it was clear that he had only recently been infected with the bird hunting malady. His hunting gear was all brand new. He hadn’t even removed the size identification tag stapled to the back of his still factory clean L. L. Bean hunting jacket. We all watched as the young man opened his game pouch and, obviously proud of his achievement, withdrew a handful of dead birds with long pointed beaks.

  “Just look at these Woodcock,” he proudly ordered. “I got four of them.”

  The reaction from Peabody and Carmichael was not what he expected. They mumbled “Oh dear” and “Good Heavens”. Then they were silent and avoided looking directly into the hunter’s eyes.

  Confused, the young man said “I understand they are good to eat.” There was no response. “They are good to eat, aren’t they?” he asked. Again, there was no response. He broke the silence with another question. “How would you cook them?” Clearly, the young man was in need of advice. It was Doctor Carmichael who undertook the task.

  “Although they were often cooked with feathers attached in 17th century England,” the doctor began, “some of that century’s recipes for the preparation of Woodcock called for plucking, but not drawing the bird.”

  “Drawing?” the young man asked.

  “Eviscerating,” Carmichael answered.


  “Eviscerating?” the young man asked.

  “Gutting,” Carmichael answered.

  “Oh,” the young man said and his eyes opened a bit wider. The possibility of cooking a bird without removing its feathers and internal organs had never occurred to him. Apparently he did not consider that prospect to be a happy one.

  “After parboiling it with salt, pepper and ginger,” the doctor continued, “the Woodcock would be baked.”

  “Guts and all?” the young man questioned, straightening up and wrinkling his noise as if he had experienced a close encounter with a vat of over-ripe Limburger cheese.

  “Yes. The intestines and all other internal organs remained in their usual places,” Doctor Carmichael confirmed, “but the bird was first larded and covered with sweet herbs.” It was evident the addition of lard and sweet herbs was not enough to induce the young man to give serious thought to re-creating the 17th century method of baking Woodcock.

  Doctor Carmichael disregarded his expression. “When you eat a woodcock prepared in accordance with that ancient recipe, …” the doctor paused for a moment and decided not to say “guts”. Instead he said: “…innards and all, don’t eat the craw and don’t look for a gizzard. The Woodcock doesn’t have one. Feeding mostly on soft earthworms and the like,” he continued, “the bird doesn’t seem to need one.”

  “That’s repulsive,” the young man said. “Cooking a bird, feathers and all and then eating it when its intestines are filled with angleworms that haven’t even been ground up by a gizzard! Surely, no one eats them that way today.”

  “In my humble opinion,” Doctor Carmichael agreed, “anyone with a palate more delicate than that of a hungry hyena would turn and run if offered such a dish. The eating of un-eviscerated Woodcock is not tolerated in any civilized country. In France, however, where the old recipe, with minor variations, is still popular, I am told un-gutted Woodcock are considered to be a gourmet delight. The French are capable of all sorts of outrages.”