INT: Tell me, was there a real Big Ben and a Lion?

WF:  Yes.  There used to be a bear like Big Ben in our county when I was a boy.  He'd gotten one paw caught in a trap, and 'cause of that, folks used to call him Reel Foot, 'cause of the way he walked.  He got killed too, though not so spectacularly as I killed him in the story of course...(drawing on pope reflectively.)  I took Hogganbeck from a fella that worked for my father.  He was about thirty, but had the mind of a fourteen-year-old.  I was about eight or nine.  'Course, me being the boss's son, we always did what I wanted to do.  It's a wonder we survived, some of the things we got into.  It's a wonder..."