The Major

The Grasshopper and the Ant

Major Nathaniel Peabody (USA, ret.) stared out of the rear window of the kitchen of his Philadelphia apartment. Even a casual observer would have recognized the complete absence of his usual buoyant disposition. He was dejected. His expression and body language confirmed it. A wallet, a few dollar bills and some coins lay on the counter before him. He picked up the wallet and shook it to see if any loose change was hiding within.
    He looked at the entire extent of his financial resources and slowly shook his head. It was the 29th day of January, and he knew his Spendthrift Trust stipend would not be presented until the first day of the month. Moreover, the attorney charged with the responsibility of delivering that check was out of town. He was trying a case in Harrisburg and wouldn’t return until the afternoon of the 31st—too late to be recruited for the evening meal.
    It was going to be a difficult two days, 10 hours and 17 minutes—the time before the clock would strike midnight on  January 31.
    Peabody’s refrigerator was less than well stocked. It contained an open package of coffee, a potato, an onion, bread (turned green with age) and what was left of a small jar of domestic caviar (left over from New Year’s Eve’s hors d’oeuvres). He threw the bread away. After a closer inspection of the potato, it joined the bread in the trash can. The Major’s larder was in even worse condition. It brought Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard to mind. Condiments and a can of mushrooms kept it from being entirely bare.
    The Major often claimed he had never missed a meal, but he admitted to having had to postpone several. This day he faced the prospect of another set of “postponements.” Peabody again added up the money lying on the kitchen counter and slowly shook his head. He could afford two meals of a hamburger and French fries. He had seven meals to go until the cavalry arrived with his February remittance. He might be able to squeeze by, but “squeezing by” was a distasteful activity.
    Peabody fully expected to be trapped and unfed in his apartment for another two days, 10 hours and (now) 11 minutes. He was reduced to staring out of his kitchen window and watching the antics of the squirrel that lived in the apartment building’s backyard oak tree. He watched it come down the trunk and pause while it looked around to make sure no wolves were lurking, ready to attack. Then it busied itself digging in the frozen turf—apparently looking for acorns it had planted during the previous fall.
    The Major watched the squirrel’s search. It dug here and there without result. It must be getting old, the Major mused. Maybe it can’t remember where it planted its food. The Major remembered watching the same squirrel during the late summer and fall as it harvested acorns from its home tree and planted them all over the yard.
    Now when it was hungry, the only problem the squirrel faced was remembering where it had stashed its provisions. After a few minutes, the squirrel gave up. It stopped looking for the acorns and ran up the pole that was capped by a flat bird feeder. Like the Major’s refrigerator, it was barren. Nevertheless, the squirrel sat there .
    At first Peabody concluded that the squirrel was a very smart rodent, and he castigated himself, I could have regularly shoved a few dollars into a shoe or under the mattress or some other such place where they would have been safe from the bankers. If I had become hungry, I could have searched my apartment and found my cache. Then I would have had the wherewithal to provide for my end-of-the-month meals.
    A moment of contemplation, however, brought a disturbing question to him. If he had set aside money to provide for his late-in-the-month poverty, where would that money have come from? To create such a rainy-day fund would have meant that he would have had to reduce (or, worse, eliminate) using some of his money for the purchase of his monthly necessities.
Yes, he could have built up such a fund, but it would have meant that he would have had to do without that extra case of 20-gauge shells that rested in his closet, or that box of cigars (now nearly empty) lying on the end table next to his wingback chair, or the supply of The Macallan that now stood in its usual place beneath the kitchen sink (and was itself close to needing replenishment). Peabody blanched at the thought and changed his opinion of the squirrel.
    A dumb animal, that’s what it is, he suddenly thought. It spends countless hours laying in a supply of food. It hides the food and forgets where it put it. Now it just sits there on a completely barren bird feeder. It would be much better off if it ate the acorns when it had them. If that squirrel were a human, it probably would give part of its Spendthrift Trust check to some banker or broker and then die with a big bank account or waste it all for end-of-the-month food. Think of all the shotgun shells, all the H. Upmanns and all The Macallan it would have missed.
At that moment the door to the apartment building’s backyard opened. The sound startled the squirrel. It leapt from the feeder and scurried up the oak tree. From the safety of a perch on a high branch and from the safety of his kitchen, the squirrel and the Major watched a lady come out of the building with a coffee can half-full of sunflower seeds. She dumped them on the empty bird feeder and returned to the building. As soon as she disappeared, the squirrel descended and made straight for the seeds.
    Perhaps that squirrel is smarter than I thought, Peabody mused. All it had to do was make its presence known, and some human appeared with enough food to appease its pangs of hunger. That squirrel depends upon others to save it from starvation. It’ll stay fat all winter. A new thought occurred to the Major and, for the first time that day, he smiled. He picked up the phone and punched in a number.
    “Hello, Doc?” he said. “You’re feeling well, I presume.” Without waiting for Doc Carmichael’s response, he continued, “Have you eaten all those grouse you put in your freezer?”
He paused for Carmichael’s response and then said, “Good, Doc, good. I’d like to cook some of them for you. Can you bring a few over . . . ?
     “Great. Bring some flour with you, too, and a bottle of whatever kind of wine you like, and a couple of potatoes—bakers . . . .
    “No, Doc, no. I don’t need mushrooms or a bay leaf, but I am a bit short on The Macallan . . . .”
    Peabody replaced the phone in its charger. He smiled. The lawyer gets back tomorrow afternoon, he thought. He’ll provide tomorrow’s dinner. Let’s see. I’ve got coffee and enough money to buy a pound of hamburger and a loaf of bread. That’ll take care of breakfasts and lunches.
    Peabody nodded and thought: You can learn a lot from a smart squirrel. Make your presence known and, properly handled, someone will bring you a good meal.

Galen Winter’s favorite Major stories have been collected and anthologized in The Best of the Major, available for $25 (plus shipping) from 800-685-7962; www.shootingsportsman.com.

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