Or here’s a story. An old man who was born in a tent in the woods tells it.
One time when I was little my daddy slew a pig for some kind of a dinner
For the other men, maybe logging season was done or a feller was getting
Married or some such thing like that, and they were going to roast it a day,
But while they were making the biggest fire you ever saw there’s a weasel
Comes and sinks his teeth in the pig and tries to haul him off into the forest.
Now this weasel weighed half of nothing and this was one tremendous pig,
So nothing much happened, but then my dad sees what’s going on pigwise
And first he calls me and my sister to see what he says is a heroic ambition,
He gives us a whole lecture and all, he was fond of delivering such lectures,
And then he tries to get the weasel to let go, but old weasel is committed to
His work, and finally my daddy gets his gloves and gets hold of the weasel
And pulls for all he is worth but nothing doing, that was a dedicated weasel,
And finally what happened was the men gave up and just put the pig to fire,
And my dad he liked to tell how that weasel hung in there near half an hour
Before he dropped off and gave everybody a disgusted look and went home.
That was one hell of a weasel, as my dad says, a phrase I never could forget.
—Brian Doyle