Ole Hammer

My papaw loved dogs. He always had dogs partly because he lived in the wilderness of Southwest Tennessee. He had squirrel dogs, possom dogs, bear dogs and they were, according to him, very intelligent. One of them was actually a member of Mensa. But his favorite dog was Ole Hammer. Years later when he spoke of that dog, tears would fill his eyes and my mamaw would come stand by his chair and put her arm around him with comforting words.

Now I have to fill in some valuable information before I can go forward. A coon hide was skinned out without cutting down the belly, that is, his hide was taken off like one would remove a sock. A trapper would have boards to slide through the hide and stretch that pelt until it dried ready for market. These boards were about 1/2 inch thick 8 inches wide and about 24 inches long gradually tapering to a rounded point on one end. The coon hide would be pulled over the board with the pointy end fitting in the upper lip of the pelt. (do you have a mental picture of this?)

Well, the thing about Ole Hammer was that my papaw didn't have to trap for his coons. He would pull out a certain size board, show it to Ole Hammer, he would go off and come back with a coon that fit that board exactly. If papaw showed him a small board, the dog would bring back a small coon. If he pulled out a larger board Hammer sometimes would be gone for two or three days but he never failed to bring back a coon that fit the board presented to him.

Now my mamaw didn't like this dog, mainly because he sucked eggs. A woman don't like an egg sucking dog. She never saw him do it but she saw the broken egg shells. Her proof was that Ole Hammer's coat was growing slick and shiny. A hound doesn't get that slick eating bacon rinds.

Well, one day she'd had enough. She went in the back room and brought out the ironing board, took it out on the porch and called Ole Hammer. Hammer crawled from under the porch shook himself free of dust and took a gander at that ironing board. He went trotting off into the woods that morning and never came back.