A Wolf In Your Barn, Is Worth A Bird In The Hand

This is a short chapter from "A Tail Of The Wolf" hope you like it.

                                                  Dr. Donald Lee Wolf, age 5
                                               Wynneywood Oklahoma 1945 
       

 When my father was quite a young man, he got into some trouble at school, as I think he did a lot. He obviously believed that something about it was unjust, either the accusation or the punishment. Or maybe he was just out for revenge. I don’t really know. But what I do know about it, is that his “retaliation” against the principal was quite unique.
     My father had this talent for catching birds, especially pigeons. He taught  my sister and I, how to catch sparrows, which is quite easy actually. Catching a pigeon takes a little more dedication.
    To catch a sparrow all you really need is a sack. A gunny sack, an onion bag, or even a pillow case, and a neighborhood with an abundance of clotheslines. Look at the top tube of the clothesline and if there’s a birds nest built at one end, you place the sack over the other end and bang the pole. If there’s a bird  in the nest it will fly out into the bag.     
    With a pigeon you have to work for it. You have to know where they roost. And be able to climb.
    Pop waited till dark, and snuck into a neighborhood barn with a gunny sack. He climbed into the rafters and grabbed the sleeping pigeons, stuffing them into the sack. A total of 18 in all.
    Pop took his bag of pigeons, and snuck over several blocks to the principals house. Once there, he cut a small hole in the top of the screen door and fed the pigeons into the hole one at a time, wedging them between the locked screen door and the wooden house door. Once the birds were wedged between the door and the screen, he simply knocked on the house, and ran.
    The principal, an unmarried, middle aged man,  lived in an old two story Victorian house with his spinster mother, just a few blocks from my father's house. Wynneywood Oklahoma is a very small town. Everything is within walking distance. Dad was probably nearly home by the time his little "time bomb" went off.
     When this gentleman opened the windowless door, to see who had knocked, the birds were freed into the house. Where they were not so easy to catch a second time. The mayhem that ensued must have been intense. The front door, according to Pop, faced the second story staircase, so the birds had a clear shot to the upper floor and the bedrooms. And in the 1940's all the interior doors would have been left open so that the downstairs heat would radiate throughout the second story. 
    The principals elderly mother was so stressed, that they had to call the local doctor (my father’s great uncle) because she wouldn‘t calm down, the story goes, that they had to medicate her, to get her settled for the envning.
     In the following days, the principal conducted quite an inquisition. But to my fathers credit, he hadn't told another sole, till he confessed to me and my sister, some 30 years later. He was never caught, and the mystery was never solved.