Gotta share this one.........Times were tough after the coal mines shut down post WW2. My dad was working three jobs , so we wouldn't loose our house to the bank. I spent most of my time as a little kid growing up in the 80 acre abandoned farm field and woods behind our house. Mom's cousin was land mgr. for the Pa.Game Comm. , and he gave me a book on how to trap critters. Read the book , did some field research , and found the muskrats living in the creek banks in the edge of the field , might have saleable hides. Got a jump trap the size to clamp on a muskrat , set it in a big hole in the creek bank on Sat. afternoon. The book said to check my trap at first light to insure my catch didn't escape. Sunday morning before breakfast , I ran the couple hundred yds. to the trap site to find a good sized grey fur ball critter in my trap. The book said , I had to kill the critter , skin it and turn the hide inside out , and put a board in the skin , fur side in to dry it. I gave it a good wack with a dry limb , and it looked dead to me. My six yr. old sensible brain thought I should see if this thing was a muskrat , or some other valuable fir bearer. Our neighbor's house was closest , and John was from W.Va. , and knew most everything about wild things , so knocked on his kitchen door. Sure enough John came to the door dressed in his church goin' clothes , a blue suit. I showed him the critter I had caught , and asked him if he deemed it to be valuable. John said it was a big possom , and not too valuable , which made me sorry I had "killed" it by mistake. John said , not to worry. He said to take it out on the side lawn , leave it there for a bit , and observe the "dead" possom from behind the corner of the garage out of sight. John left for church , and in a minute , the possom sprang up and trotted down the road as if a miricle happened. When John got back from church , I ran over to him and told what happened. He laughed and said , possoms sometimes go into a sleep , if they are threatened , and come alive when danger is passed. That was a six yr. old trapper's first lesson. As i grew older and more experienced , I ran a trapline of 30 or more trap sets starting at 4Am in the morning , and back home for breakfast , and school bus by 8 AM. In the trapping season , my best year was around 20 + musk rats worth $2 each. I was rich after the traps were pulled before winter Ice shut the season down , and I sold my furs. When you have little , then gain something , though the work was hard , lessons are learned.