A Man and a Woman | Page 4

like that of the swoop of the
night-hawk? And who better than he could pluck lobelia, and
smartweed, and dig wild turnips and bring all for his mother to dry for

possible use, should, he or his father or she catch cold or be ill in any
way? Hopes for the future had he, too. Sometimes a deer had come in
great leaps across the clearing, and once a bear had invaded the
hog-pen. The young man had an idea that as soon as he became a little
taller and could take down the heavy gun, an old "United States yager"
with a big bore, bloodshed would follow in great quantities. He had
persuaded his father to let him aim the piece once or twice, and had
confidence that if he could get a fair shot at any animal, that animal
would die. Were it a deer, he had concluded he would aim from a great
stump a few feet distant from the house. If a bear came, he would shut
the door and raise the window, not too far, and blaze away from there.
But in none of all these things, either present exploits or imaginings for
the future, was his interest most entangled. His specialty was Snakes.
Not intended by nature for a naturalist was this youthful individual
whose specialty was snakes. Very much enamored was he of most of
nature's products, but not at all of the family ophidia. Snakes were his
specialty simply because he did not approve of them. All dated back to
the affair of three years before. Snakes were abundant in the wood, but
were not of many kinds. There were garter-snakes, dreaded of the little
frogs, but timid of most things; there was a small snake of wonderful
swiftness and as green as the grass into which it darted; there were the
water pilots, sunning themselves in coils upon the driftwood in the
water, swart of color, thick of form and offensive of aspect; there were
the milk-snakes, yellowish gray, with wonderful banded sides and with
checker-board designs in black upon their yellow bellies. Sometimes a
pan of milk from the solitary cow, set for its cream in the dug-out cellar
beneath the house, would be found with its yellow surface marred and
with a white puddling about the floor, and then the milk remaining
would be thrown away and there would be a washing and scalding of
the pan, because the thief was known. There were, in the lowlands, the
massasaugas; short, sluggish rattle-snakes, venomous but cowardly,
and, finally, there were the black-snakes ranging everywhere, for no
respecter of locality is bascanion constrictor when in pursuit of prey.
Largest of all the snakes of the region, the only constrictor among them,
at home in the lowlands, on the hill-sides or in the tree-tops, the
black-snake was the dread of all small creatures of the wood. There was

a story of how one of them had dropped upon a hunter, coiled himself
about his neck and strangled him.
This young man of six remembered how, one day, three years back,
before he had assumed trousers or become familiar with all the affairs
of the world, he was alone in the house, his mother having gone into
the little garden. He remembered how, looking up, he saw, lifted above
the doorsill, a head with beady, glittering eyes, and how, after a
moment's survey, the head was lifted higher and there came gliding
over the floor toward him a black monster, with darting tongue and
long, curved body and evident fierce intent. He remembered how he
leaped for a high stool which served him at the table, how he clambered
to its top and there set up a mighty yell for succor--for he had great
lungs. He could, by shutting his eyes, even now, see his mother as she
came running from the garden, see her look of terror as she caught sight
of the circling thing upon the floor, and then the look of desperation as
the mother instinct rose superior and she dashed into the room, seized
the great iron shovel that stood before the fireplace, and began dealing
reckless blows at the hissing serpent. A big black-snake is not a
pleasant customer, but neither--for a black-snake--is a frenzied mother
with an iron fire shovel in her hand, and this particular snake turned tail,
a great deal of it, by the way, since it extended to its head, and
disappeared over the doorsill in a cataract of black and into the wood
again.
From that hour the individual so beleaguered on a stool had been no
friend of snakes. Talk about vendettas! No Sicilian feud was ever
bitterer or more relentlessly pursued, as the boy increased in size and
confidence. Scores of garter-snakes had