(upbeat music) - [Announcer] The following program is a videotaped production of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

(gentle music) - I don't know about this hunting in the daytime.

Where I come from down Washington county, we used to hunt deer at night.

What we'd do is find a clearing where the deer used to tend and we'd get up in the tree with a headlight and a rifle.

Then deer would come out in the clearing.

You'd shine a light on them.

Course, all you could see was their eyes.

You just aimed between their eyes.

Well, they wised up after a while, had to give that up.

They got so smart.

Got to where they'd come out in the field still.

But the minute you shine a light on them everyone in them deer would close one eye.

Course I ain't deer hunting today, I'm after rabbits.

Only got one bullet.

I decided I was gonna try to top Marshall Dodge in a story he told me the other night.

You gonna do any hunting this year?

Rabbit season's opening before long.

- Well, you know, I'm not much on hunting.

I figured long time ago, I might as just well quit while I'm ahead.

Now, first time I ever went hunting, I had the damnedest luck.

I asked Henry Beal, I think it was, if he'd come over and show me how to shoot a gun, I'd never shot one before.

And he brung over and all rusted out 22.

Was a squirrel gun with two rounds of ammunition.

And he said, "Now Marshal," he said, "You see them tracks at your feet?"

He said, "Them is rabbit tracks.

And the end of them is your breakfast."

Well, I said, "I thought you were gonna show me how to shoot this gun."

Well, he said, "Experience is the best teacher.

Now go to it."

And he clapped me over the back and I staggered off in the woods.

I look back, I could see he was laughing up a storm.

He knew I'd be hollering for him before too long.

Well, I hadn't gone more than a hundred yards when I come to the side of a big oak tree and in a branch of that tree was 12 wild turkeys.

So I fired at the base of the branch.

I split that branch right in two.

Turkey's legs fell in between, the branch snapped back together again and held them turkeys fast.

Now I tore that branch off the side the tree, put it my shoulder and struck off in the woods following them rabbit tracks.

Well, now I had gone more than another a hundred yards when I come to the side of a hill.

And I must say I was some scared, 'cause I heard an awful roaring sound and I looked down the hill and it was a bear coming up after me.

And I heard a screeching and a yowling and I looked up the side of the hill and it was a mountain lion coming down after me - [Kendall] Godfrey.

- Well, I determined to take the bear on first.

He was closer too, and he was too close for me to get off that last round at him.

Couldn't fire.

And he was right under the gun there and he comes so close that all I could think to do was to shove my hand right into his mouth.

And that startled him some, but it didn't slow him down.

He kept coming.

So my arm slid right down his throat.

He kept coming and I just pushed my hand right through his intestines.

First upper and then lower.

Right like that.

Right round.

So he kept coming.

And my hand come right out the other side.

Now I reached up, grabbed ahold of that bear's tail.

And I gave one hell of a yank.

Pulled that bear right inside out.

- Yeah.

- Now of course that bear kept it going but it was in the other direction.

- Yeah.

- Well now at just that moment, the mountain lion was almost on me.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

We both heard a howl and it was a pack of wolves closing in on the two of us.

Now I looked at the mountain lion and he looked at me and we figured that whatever our differences was we'd better take the wolves on first.

Now there's a great, tremendous battle.

And inside of 10 minutes, all 'em wolves was killed.

Now I looked at the mountain lion and he looked at me and we figured that whatever our troubles was it was over.

And well, he turned on his heels walked back up the mountain and I turned on my heels walked down the mountain, following them rabbit tracks.

Now I hadn't gone more than a another hundred yards when I come to the side of a stream.

And I was about to ford that stream when I spied two foxes on the opposite bank.

And I couldn't ford the stream 'cause they was mean foxes.

And I knew there was gonna bite me if they could.

So I drew a bead on them.

I aimed in between, not knowing which one to fire at.

I was about to squeeze off the last round when I heard a honking sound.

I looked up overhead and there was 12 wild geese heading south and I heard a quacking.

There was 12 wild ducks heading south.

So I attempted to fire at them birds but I better take them foxes on first, I said to myself.

So I squeezed off the last round, aiming at the foxes.

Now the gun exploded in my face.

I told you it was rusted out.

And the butt of the gun flew north and knocked down all 12 geese.

The barrel of the gun flew south and skewed all 12 ducks.

And the bullet spread true to its mark, struck a rock, split it in two and killed both foxes.

Now the kick of that explosion was such as to knock me into the stream behind.

And when I come to, my right hand was on an otter's head.

My left hand was on a beaver's tail and my trouser pockets were so full of trout that a button popped off my fly and killed the rabbit.

- Yeah.

- Now you may not believe that.

That was beginner's luck.

And I figured that I might just as well quit while I was ahead.

And I've never hunted since.

- Well.

I know you mentioned bear.

I had an experience with a bear one time, too.

I was picking blueberries and all of a sudden this old big sheep bear rose right up, right up in front of me, let out a hell of a roar.

And I took off running and I run as hard as I could.

And I looked back and the bear was still there and I run for miles.

- [Marshall] Running after ya?

- He was after me.

Yeah, she was after me.

Well, this went on, as I say quite a little while.

You know, the only I could get clear of that damn bear, after a while there was to run across the ice.

It had just frozen over just a little bit.

And it was just enough to hold my weight, but that bear weighed 400 or 500 pounds and it wouldn't hold her and she fell through the ice and I got away.

- Now, wait a minute.

You said you was blue berrying.

- Yeah?

- And that would have to be in the summertime and then you come to the ice and that would have to be in the wintertime.

Now that just don't make no sense.

- Oh, I just forgot to mention that damn thing chased me from the middle of the summer till Christmas.

- God, Kendall.

Sometimes, you know, I find it awful hard to believe you.

- (laughing) I was just thinking the same thing about you.

- Yes, I can...

I can remember my cousin Arthur.

Now he was one of them missionary types.

He was skinny and born and raised in Boston.

And we got cousin Arthur to come up and decided to bring him out hunting just to test his metal, you might say.

And we said we was going off to hunt bear to see how he'd react and see whether he'd get scared or not.

And he seemed pretty brave but we tried to see if we could rattle him a little bit.

And we said, "Now come on, Arthur we're going off hunting bear."

Well, he said he's gonna stay back.

He was not going hunting with us.

And we hunted all day long, come back in.

We still hadn't found a bear.

And he said, "Well," he said, "I think I'll go out and see if I can't hunt you up a bear."

Well now of course we laughed up a storm.

He'd never hunted for nothing.

We said, "Go ahead, cousin Arthur."

Well, he jotted off in the woods, his skinny legs pumping up over hill and dale and 'course he was wearing shorts.

- [Kendall] Shorts?

- Yes.

He was wearing shorts, cousin Arthur.

Well, he run into a bear about a half mile out.

Well he'd never seen one before and he was so scared he dropped his gun and he hightailed it back the cabin with that bear right on his tail.

And he run inside the cabin, Arthur did, where we was playing cards and the bear run in after him.

Well now Arthur, he tripped over the sill just as he was coming in.

And the bear tripped right over the top of Arthur and rolled and somersaulted right in the middle of the cabin.

Well, Arthur, he jumped up and run outside, slammed the door peered in through the window.

And he said, "There's your bear, fellas.

You skin him out and I'm going out for more."

- Great.

- He had the last laugh on that.

- Yeah, I guess he did.

He should have had that old 45 90 I used to have years ago.

You remember that one with the long barrel on it?

That thing would shoot so far, I had to put salt on the bullets so the meat wouldn't spoil while I was getting there.

- [Marshall] Kendall.

- Say, do you have any frost over at y'all place this morning?

- Frost?

You ask me about frost?

Well, this morning I woke up about five o'clock.

Ain't never been a layer bed in the Perkins family for as long as anyone can remember.

And I jumped into my pants and pulled on my boots and headed down over them stairs of mine.

Now, them stairs, I don't want none of them steep narrow stairs, where you break your damn neck going up and down 'em like a ladder.

My stairs have got 12 inch treads and only five inch risers.

And you don't wear no holler in the middle of them, neither because they're made out a solid oak.

And alongside them stairs, I got me a red cherry banister and at the foot a newel post made out curly ash and the combination of red cherry and curly ash, it's awful nice in the early morning light.

Well now at the foot of them stairs, I got me a sitting room.

And in the corner of that sitting room, I got me a red plush sofa and at the head of it, a standing lamp with a circle of burner and a cream colored globe.

And, you know, I don't think nothing are lying on that sofa reading until almost 8:30 before I go to bed.

Well, then I headed out into my dining room and I got wainscotting all around that dining room made out of butternut wood.

If you got yourself a dining room, you ought to have wainscotting.

And if you got wainscotting, you ought to have butternut wood because God, it just gives you an appetite to look at it, I want to tell you.

Well, as I say, this morning after I'd gone through the dining room, I went into the kitchen to put the biscuits on that ma prepared the night before.

Now, I got myself, a big black Clarion stove in the center of that kitchen.

And it's got five or six controls onto it.

And it takes more than a teaspoon full of brains to operate but maybe that's why there ain't so many of them stoves around today.

Now I can cook three or four dishes on that stove all at once and they can all come out just about right.

Over on the back part of that stove up on the left is the searing part of the stove where I sear steaks.

A little bit further forward is the simmering part of the stove where I simmer bones for making soup and way up on the left, right up in the front of the stove is the waiting area where the park waits for the beans and the butter waits for the clams.

And over on the right, that's where I thaw out the Shellac for spring painting.

Now I don't burn nothing but rock maple and birch in that stove and the smoke from that wood works its way right through the stove lids and through the pots and pans and right right in the food and gives it the best flavor, I want to tell you.

Now, I don't mind telling you that that's one of the finest built stoves in the country, 'cause they got that nice metal cabinet built right in on top of of the stove, built right into it.

And that's where most folks keep their salt, pepper and spices and keep 'em dry and proper.

But that's where I stuff my bills and let 'em age for three four months.

Well then I headed out toward my privy.

I always say that a fellow who ain't regular in his habits ain't going to amount to nothing.

I got out that privy and I begun to think what a nice privy that was.

I built it quartering into the wind 'cause it makes mighty sight a difference with the draft that comes up through the holes.

- [Kendall] Oh yeah.

- And I built the seat outta boxwood.

You can sand that down with 00000 sandpaper.

It comes out to smooth and that boxwood don't get no cracks into it.

'Cause I can tell you, they can prove quite startling.

After I got through with the privy I headed out toward my pasture and I opened up the gate and I looked down on the ground and you know there on the grass was just a little might of frost.

- Yeah.

You want your tea hotted up?

- I sure do.

Yes.

- [Kendall] This thing ain't working very good.

The draft is bad or something.

- Well, you know, I don't believe that the draft on these stoves today is near what it ought to be.

They're positively dangerous.

Now I had a stove one time that had so much draft that it was dangerous 'cause it had too much.

- [Kendall] Really?

- Yes.

I built a cabin in the woods and I built me a stove out of some old oil drums.

I welded and soldered them together as best I could.

And that stove come out looking queer.

You see the drive hole come in the top and the stove pipe went out the bottom.

Now, you know, that's a queer looking stove.

- [Kendall] Yeah.

I was just thinking it was queer looking.

- But I knew, and don't tell me how I knew, that that stove was gonna have one heck of a draft and them full guides who'd come over to laugh at me and laugh at that stove, they got to acting up and I warned them that that stove when it started up was gonna have an awful draft and they'd better watch out.

I went off to the wood shed to fetch an arm load of hardwood that would burn real slow and easy.

Didn't want to have no nuclear reaction on our hands.

And I come back, headed back toward that stove, and the most awful roaring started up outta the cabin.

"Who put soft wood in that stove?"

I shouted.

"It's going much too strong!"

They'd jumped the gun, of course.

- [Kendall] Yeah.

- They'd started the stove up.

Well, I had an awful hard time getting back into that cabin.

I had to grip the sides of the door frame such was the suction coming out of that stove and them fool guides, they was holding on the insides of that cabin with their teeth and fingernails dug right into the walls.

Right like that.

And their legs are flapping in midair.

- [Kendall] Yeah.

- Well then there was an awful clatter and first the lid lifter, then the Stoker then the shovel was sucked right in through the draft hole and rattled out the chimley.

Then there was a terrible wrench and that stove lifted right up off the cabin floor.

Come to rest against the splits of the roof.

Then there was another ungodly wrench and that whole cabin lifted right up off its foundation.

- Boy.

- Well I knew right then and there that I had me a stove with one heck of a draft.

Well with great presence of mind, I reached up and grabbed a hold of that damper handle on the stove.

And I turned it ever so slow toward the closed position thereby easing the cabin, looking out window, back down to its foundations.

And then I gently eased the stove back down the cabin floor.

And one of them full guides who would by that time had returned the upright had the audacity to say, "You know, Marshall."

He said, "If you had had a governor on that stove then that wouldn't have happened."

I said, "Governor, heck you put soft wood in that stove.

And not even the president of the United States gonna hold that stove down."

(Kendall laughs) - God that wind's still blowing.

Been blowing for three days now.

You ever see anything like it?

- Oh God, the wind nowadays ain't nothing compared to what it was in the old days.

- No, that's true.

- I can remember back in the fall of 27 I think it was, the circus was marching through town and we had a Northwest wind that day and a gust come along.

Just lifted that circus parade and plastered it right up against the post office wall.

Well, so we didn't know what to do.

We spent the rest of the winter trying to pry that parade off that wall with putty knives and crowbars.

Never did succeed in getting even a part of that parade off the wall so we just left it there as the poster for the next year's circus.

- Well, you speak a crow bars, I remember one time and a fellow was telling me, I didn't see it.

And he was telling me that wind blew so hard down to his place that had unraveled a crow bar, blowed two rooster feathers right through a grindstone.

- Oh, that's hard to believe.

- Well you wander to down his way he says he'll show you the crowbar.

- Well, I can remember that time when I had a hen and the wind was blowing so hard that hen was laying eggs into the wind.

It laid the same egg five times.

- Yeah?

Getting any mud up your way?

- Oh God.

Not like the mud in the old days.

'Cause we've tired the roads and we've got drainage ditches everywhere.

- [Kendall] Oh yeah.

- That dries the land out a lot.

But in the old days, God that's when we got a little bit of mud.

I swear, now this is a true story.

I was sitting on the front porch in the spring.

I think of 37.

Now we'd had an awful lot of snow that winter.

So it was muddy, no doubt about it.

And I spied an object working its way down the middle of the road, up on the hill.

And I thought it might have been a cat but it didn't have no tail.

Weren't a bobtail cat 'cause there weren't none of them in town.

Weren't a Groundhog.

I could see that 'cause God groundhogs run from one stone wall to the other, never down the middle of the road like whatever this was doing.

Well, you'd got about 100 yards away and I could just make out that it was a gray felt hat.

Now I swear that, it was gray felt hat.

And it was no more than six inches above the surface of the road.

Freshen you up?

- Yeah.

- No more than six inches, as I say, above the surface of the road and four hours later it drew even with where I was sitting.

And I can tell you, I was some curious to see who was under that hat.

- Yeah.

- Well I got down on all fours, you know.

I looked down under that hat and God, it was Tut Tuttle, the postman.

He was going along you know, not making very much progress and his ugly old nose was sticking out above the surface of the road.

And I leaned real close to a good ear and I said, "Afternoon, Tut.

Muddy walking, ain't it?"

Oh he said, "Heck I ain't on foot, I'm on horseback."

- Got it.

- Now that was mud.

You don't get mud like that today.

- It's a good thing we don't.

You know, if I owed the devil a thousand liars and he wouldn't take Marshall Dodge as a down payment I'd consider him a hard one to deal with.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Marshall Dodge is not only the superb actor you've just seen, he is also a noted lecturer, author, and one half of the famous Bert and I recording team.

A native of New York state, Marshall moved to Maine some years ago and currently resides in Portland.

(gentle music) (upbeat music)