He could stand right up and talk to you, he could. Did he fight
hard?"
Antonia broke in: "He fight something awful! He is all over Jimmy's boots.
I scream for him to run, but he just hit and hit that snake like he was
crazy."
Otto winked at me. After Antonia rode on he said: "Got him in the head
first crack, did n't you? That was just as well."
We hung him up to the windmill, and when I went down to the kitchen I
found Antonia standing in the middle of the floor, telling the story with
a great deal of color.
Subsequent experiences with rattlesnakes taught me that my first encounter
was fortunate in circumstance. My big rattler was old, and had led too
easy a life; there was not much fight in him. He had probably lived there
for years, with a fat prairie dog for breakfast whenever he felt like it,
a sheltered home, even an owl-feather bed, perhaps, and he had forgot that
the world does n't owe rattlers a living. A snake of his size, in fighting
trim, would be more than any boy could handle. So in reality it was a mock
adventure; the game was fixed for me by chance, as it probably was for
many a dragon-slayer. I had been adequately armed by Russian Peter; the
snake was old and lazy; and I had Antonia beside me, to appreciate and
admire.
That snake hung on our corral fence for several days; some of the
neighbors came to see it and agreed that it was the biggest rattler ever
killed in those parts.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59