My stepmother, Miss Pauline (which is what I called her), was a strong, drab woman whose only interests lay in the kitchen, the garden, and the bank. She was very money-conscious, which did my father untold good, since he was the most improvident man in the Adirondacks. In those days he could get nine dollars for a first-rate beaver pelt, and trapping the stupid creatures was easier than falling off a log, but somehow my father never got around to putting in his trap line until the neighbors had already staked out the best ponds. Indian Pete, our next-door neighbor who lived two miles up the road, was the best trapper in the country. He could throw a deadfall together from an old log and some saplings and a bit of twine in two minutes flat, and next day, when he ran his trap line, there would almost always be a fox or a rabbit trapped under it. Once, when I went with him early on a Christmas morning, we found a skunk. That was the first time I ever saw Pete angry. He mumbled a string of remarks in Mohawk and used a precious cartridge to dispatch the skunk.

“Why are you so mad, Pete?”

“Skunk, him ruin fox runway. All poisoned. No more fox come here.”

“But isn’t a skunk hide worth money?”

“Two dollar. Bad cleaning. Stink up knife, stretching board.”

With distaste he picked the skunk up with a split tree branch and dropped it onto a page of newspaper he took from his pack.

“Why don’t you just throw it away, then?”

He shook his head. Pete’s hair was long and shiny black and hung down around his shoulders. “No, Missy. Killum, skinum. No throwum away.”

This was my first lesson in conservation. It has always stuck with me. Take what you need, use it all, and leave something for the next person.