I stand on top of our back steps and breathe the rich air--... a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail. She jabs her wedge-head in a cup of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail, and will not scare.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But he sent her Good-by, And said to be good,... And wear her red hood, And look for skunk tracks In the snow with an ax-- And do everything!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Where the Moosatockmaguntic Pours its waters in the Skuntic,... Met, along the forest side Hiram Hover, Huldah Hyde. She, a maiden fair and dapper, He, a red-haired, stalwart trapper, Hunting beaver, mink, and skunk In the woodlands of Squeedunk.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On gala days the town fires its great guns, which echo like popguns to these woods, and some waifs of martial music occasionally p...enetrate thus far. To me, away there in my bean-field at the other end of the town, the big guns sounded as if a puffball had burst; and when there was a military turnout of which I was ignorant, I have sometimes had a vague sense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon, as if some eruption would break out there soon.... When there were several bands of musicians, it sounded as if all the village was a vast bellows, and all the buildings expanded and collapsed alternately with a din. But sometimes it was a really noble and inspiring strain that reached these woods, and the trumpet that sings of fame, and I felt as if I could spit a Mexican with a good relish,--for why should we always stand for trifles?--and looked round for a woodchuck or a skunk to exercise my chivalry upon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The liberal holds that he is true to the republic when he is true to himself. (It may not be as cozy an attitude as it sounds.) He... greets with enthusiasm the fact of the journey, as a dog greets a man's invitation to take a walk. And he acts in the dog's way too, swinging wide, racing ahead, doubling back, covering many miles of territory that the man never traverses, all in the spirit of inquiry and the zest for truth. He leaves a crazy trail, but he ranges far beyond the genteel old party he walks with and he is usually in a better position to discover a skunk.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In England if something goes wrong--say, if one finds a skunk in the garden--he writes to the family solicitor, who proceeds to ta...ke the proper measures; whereas in America, you telephone the fire department. Each satisfies a characteristic need; in the English, love of order and legalistic procedure; and here in America, what you like is something vivid, and red, and swift.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Telephone poles were matchsticks, put there to be snapped off at a whim. Dogs trotting across the road were suddenly big trucks. O...ld ladies turned into moving--vans. Everything was too bright, but very funny and made for my delight. And about half a mile from my long liquid breakfast I turned carefully down a side street and parked, and sat beaming happily through the tannic fog for about an hour, remembering how witty we all had been, how handsome and talented ... [ellipsis in original]LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »