Business: Trapper

Every year at the end of November muskrats set out to do something about their annual housing shortage. In the summer they burrow into the banks of streams or ponds but during the northern winter the underwater entrances freeze up and the muskrats must build houses. A muskrat house is a haphazard domelike heap of reeds and marsh grass. Muskrats are vegetarians, so if necessary in the dead of winter they can eat their houses. Mostly each family lives alone, which makes muskrat census-taking easy. Walter Abner Gibbs, who is the biggest muskrat...

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