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Snaking
by
“Now, who said anything about your astronomy? I’d like to know who is telling this–you or I? Always think you know more than I do–and always swearing it isn’t so–and always taking the words out of my mouth, and–but what’s the use of arguing with you? As I was saying, the snakes began waking about the same time I did; I could hear them turn over on their other sides and sigh. Presently one raised himself up and yawned. He meant well, but it was not the regular thing for an ophidian to do at that season. By-and-by they began to poke their heads up all round, nodding good morning to one another across the room; and pretty soon one saw me lying there and called attention to the fact. Then they all began to crowd to the front and hang out over the sides of the beds in a fringe, to study my habits. I can’t describe the strange spectacle: you would have supposed it was the middle of March and a forward season! There were more worms than I had counted, and they were larger ones than I had thought. And the more they got awake the wider they yawned, and the longer they stretched. The fat fellows in the hammocks above me were in danger of toppling out and breaking their necks every minute.
“Then it went through my mind like a flash what was the matter. Finding it cold outside, Ben had made a roaring fire on the top of the rock, and the heat had deceived the worms into the belief that it was late spring. As I lay there and thought of a full-grown man who hadn’t any better sense than to do such a thing as that, I was mad enough to kill him. I lost confidence in mankind. If I had not stopped up the entrance before lying down, with a big round stone which the heat had swollen so that a hydraulic ram couldn’t have butted it loose, I should have put on my clothes and gone straight home.”
“But, Sam, you said the entrance was open, and the moon shining in.”
“There you go again! Always contradicting–and insinuating that the moon must remain for hours in one position–and saying you’ve heard it told better by some one else–and wanting to fight! I’ve told this story to your brother over at Milk River more than a hundred million times, and he never said a word against it.”
“I believe you, Samuel; for he is deaf as a tombstone.”
“Tell you what to do for him! I know a fellow in Smith’s Valley will cure him in a minute. That fellow has cleaned the deafness all out of Washington County a dozen times. I never knew a case of it that could stand up against him ten seconds. Take three parts of snake-root to a gallon of waggon-grease, and–I’ll go and see if I can find the prescription!”
And Sam was off like a rocket.