Squirrels

Squirrels are among the few animals shown directly in the book’s episodes of hunting: first as creatures Arvin Russell does not want to shoot, then as game he can bring home for a household short of meat. Their brief appearances trace the practical lessons of survival and mark Arvin’s increasing confidence with a gun.

Hunting and instruction

Soon after Arvin came to live with Earskell, the older man took him into the woods with a shotgun. When Earskell pointed out two gray squirrels moving among the branches of a hickory tree, Arvin said he did not want to shoot anything. Earskell answered his reluctance by connecting hunting to the meat Arvin already ate: someone had killed and butchered the hog that supplied his pork chop. Earskell then shot one of the squirrels himself and stressed the practical aim of leaving enough meat intact to cook. The episode presents the animals as food within a lesson about the work behind eating, rather than as targets for sport.

Prey and household need

Later, Arvin arrived home carrying three red squirrels. Emma had served beans and fried potatoes for four days, and the household’s provisions tended to run low near the end of the month, before her pension check arrived. The squirrels therefore had an immediate consequence: they promised a meal for Arvin and Earskell when both were hungry for meat. The contrast between the two gray squirrels in the earlier lesson and the three red squirrels Arvin brings back also distinguishes instruction from its later result: the boy who had resisted shooting game now contributes it to the household.

Mark of Arvin’s skill

By the time he brings home the red squirrels, Arvin has his father’s German Luger. Earskell privately takes pride in the boy’s ability with it, though he continues to prefer a rifle or a pepper gun and disparages handguns. Arvin defends the pistol by pointing to his accuracy: he says he hit every squirrel in the head, something he argues a shotgun could not do. Earskell nevertheless tells him to put the pistol away for a while and use a rifle if he goes hunting. The squirrels thus become evidence of Arvin’s marksmanship, but the exchange also preserves Earskell’s caution about the weapon. Their role remains concrete and domestic: they are animals hunted for food, and the measure by which the boy’s skill becomes visible.