THE SNAKE
THE fish is a animal and the bird is a beast, but snakes is a fo to man. The snake he is the same as serpents, only he hasnt no feets, and that makes him mad and he bites every thing which is in the world. Snakes is pizen, but the hog he says: “I dont care, it wont do you any good for to bite me.”
Then the snake he says: “It dont do me no good for to bite any kind of feller, that aint why I do it, I aint selfish.”
So he whacks away at the hog and hollers hooray! But the hog he catches him by the middle and makes 2 snakes of him in a minute and says: “I’m pretty bitey my self, thank you.”
Hogs is pork, but Jakey Epstein he says he would rather be one than eat one. But give me a sucker nice roasted, with plenty mashed potatoes, and apple sauce, and pickles, and hot cakes, and mince pie, and walnuts, and you will see a boy which knows his own mind. Hogs is bristly, but the ally gater has notches in the spineof his back and eats niggers.
Uncle Ned, which has been in Indy and every where, he says the Gangee river is over flowin with gaters, and one time he see a gater a lyin on the bank asleep, and he told his servant, which was a natif nigger: “Take a ax and chop up that dead tree into stove wood,” cause thats what Uncle Ned thought it was. The servant he thought so too and said: “Yessir,” and Uncle Ned he went away to shoot rabbits in the jingle. When he come back he went in the bungaloo and found the servant covered up nice and warm in bed. Uncle Ned said: “You lazy feller, did you chop up that log, like I told you?”
The feller he said: “I tried to, sir, but it come to life.”
Uncle Ned he spoke up, real sarcastical, and said: “O sure, and I suppose it put forth some limbs, didnt it?”
The feller said: “Yessir, it put forth some on each side.”
Uncle Ned said a other time: “It blossomed too, maybe.”
The nigger feller said: “Yessir, bout 3 feet wide, you ought to have saw it open like it was a morning glory!”
Then Uncle Ned, which was still ironical, he said: “Did it take root?”
The nigger feller thought a while and then he said: “I was a bit upset and can’t recollect that it took any thing only but jest my laig.”
But if a gater wanted Billys laig he would cut its head off with a long sword and say: “That will teach you for to not ask for it, cause I want it to go to school with.” Billy is the bravest boy he ever saw, and licks Sammy Doppy every little while.
A other time in Indy Uncle Ned was a walkin in the jingle and a long slender snake jumped at him and bit him on the hand and ran away. Then Uncle Ned he run as hard as he could for to get home and die in the bosom of his club. While he was a runnin and a prayin for his sins to be forgave he see a natif nigger a sittin by the road side, and the natif nigger had three jest such snakes twisted all round his naked arms and bitin, real cruel, but he had got all their tails into one hand.
Then Uncle Ned he stopped and said: “Poor feller, I have been bit too. As there isnt any hope for us now, we will sell our lifes as dear as we can tothem deadly cobrys.”
So he threw off his coat and pitched in and grabbed the snakes tails too. Then the native nigger he sed: “Thankee, sir, I guess we will be able for to manage them now. There is to be a party tonight, and I have been tryin for more than half a hour to braid these fellers into a necklace for the stomach of my wife’s belly, but they are so squirmy I thought I would have to give it up.”
Uncle Ned he was a stonished, and he said: “What! isnt them reptiles pizen?”
The natif nigger he said: “How can I know? Do you suppose I ever et one?”
One day my father he spoke up and said: “Johnny, did you ever hear about the good man which found a frozen snake and warmed it in his bosom, and when the snake got nice and comftable it bit him?”
I said: “Yessir, every fool has heard about that.”
Then my father he said: “My boy, the goodness isnt all on one side, for one time a snake found a man which was cold, and the snake warmed the man in its bosom too.”
Then I said: “What did the man do when he had got the chill off him?”
My father he said: “Well, Johnny, he digested.”
Once there was a big snake which was a show, and the show man he put a dog in the cage for the snakes dinner. The dog he looked at the snake a while, and then he said: “That is the biggest sausage that I ever saw. I dont believe it could be et all to one meal by any dog which roams the palmy plain.”
But bime by he was et his own self, and when he was nice swallered the snake he wank his eye, and said to his self: “The man which invented self stuffin sausages wasnt no friend to dogs.”
A other snake which was a show swallered its blanket, and when the show man missed it he said, the show man did: “Ide jest like to catch the gum dasted thief which steals folkses bed clothes!”
He give the snake a other blanket, but watched for to catch the thief. When he see the snake a swollerin that one he went and fetched a pillow and threw it to the snake and said: “If you are makin up your bed for to sleep in side your self you will need this, and when you have turned in I will pass down a hot water bottle for your feets, and make you comftable. What time would you like to be woke in the mornin?”
Snakes eats hop toads and snaps at the hand which feeds it, but dogs is all rite. Snakes skins their selfs once a year, and one time me and Mister Brily, thats the fat butcher, we see one do it. When it was all done Mister Brily he said to the snake, Mister Brily did: “So far, so good, my fine feller, but how are you goin to get your innards out unless you got a knife?”
The boa conscripter is a snake, but the rattler he makes the welkin ring! I asked Uncle Ned what was snakes made for, and he said: “I dont know, Johnny, honest, I didnt have nothing to do with it, but bein a mighty eloquent speecher I flatter my self I have made a shoreless sea of Demcrats. Your honorable father, which is a Repubcan, like you, he says that is about the same thing, but he is a child of darkness and disdain. I can tell you, though, about the snakes in the Garden of Eden, all exceptin the one which was tempted by Eve. When they had all been made, Adam he called them together and give them their names, and then he waved his arms and said: 'Now go 4th into all the waste places of the earth and multiply.’
“They all slided away only but jest one, which lay still and shook its head, real sad. Then Adam he said: 'Why dont you do as I said? Off with you to once!’
“But the snake, it spoke up and sed, the snake did: 'If you please, sir, Ime willing to go 4th, but I cant multiply. Ime a adder. You told me so your self.’”
I asked Uncle Ned what makes the rattler have rattles, and he said: “Johnny, he doesnt. That is a optical delusion due to idleness in the observer. What they mistake for rattles is the last joints of the spine of his back bone, and it come about this way. The rattler he was created so ugly that it strangled him for to look at his self, and when he drew near any thing for to be sociable it fled amain. Well, one day in the Garden of Eden, he shedded his skin like all snakes had been told to do, and a other snake it shedded its skin too. So the rattler he backed into the other snakes skin for to hide his ugly, but it was too short, so the rattler bit off a inch or two and let a few joints of the spine of his back stick out, and they rattle when he shakes with fright, which is frequent. What scares him the worst is when a boy is about to step on him with bare feets. Johnny, you should be kind to the poor rattler and not step on it if there is plenty of room.
“And now, my lad, I will tell you about a feller which drinked whiskey, which is equal bad. Me and the feller and a doctor was a campin in the forest, and the doctor had brought along a jug of whisky for to cure snake bites. One day him and me went out for to shoot bears, and when we come home to camp the feller he was lyin down in the tent, so dead drunk that he didn’t know a thing and was to the point of death! Johnny, it is awful to see a drinkard when he is himself, so I tore my hair and bewailed loud and shrill, but the doctor he sat down for to think, and bime be he said: 'I got it, I got it!’
“Then he rushed away into the jingle, and pretty soon he come back with a rattler in the end of a long split stick, which he poked at the feller and it bit him many a time and oft. Johnny, it sounds like a mystery, and I wouldn’t ask you to believe it if I didnt tell it myself, but them snake bites they beat the fell intent of that whisky, for the feller he sprang up and evanished into the bosky fastness, and is now holdin a office of trust and profit in Kansas.”
I asked Uncle Ned what became of the rattler, and he said, Uncle Ned did: “Thats a mighty sad story, Johnny,and I don’t like to dwell up on it. We took the snake outside the tent and let it go, and the first thing it done was to tie itself in a double bow knot and stick the ends through. Then it raveled it self out, and stood on its head, and waved its tail in air, and said it was the Queen of Sheby.”
Injins eats snakes, but give me a pie, with lots of spice, and a apple dumplin, and some stewed squash, and plenty spunge cake, and a lot of sossage, and some more spunge cake, and some pickles, and all I can eat of chicken gizards, which is the stuff of life!