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Then I realized
screams were coming from me.
Seconds later, I cleared porch steps in one leap and barged into kitchen, startling my mother, who, by this time, had left living room.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Mom gasped, as she turned away from sink.
“Snake!” was all I could say before collapsing against her.
Mom grabbed cupboard to steady her balance and then put her arm around me. “Where was snake, honey?” she asked, patting my back with one hand as she held onto kitchen counter with other. “Did you see a little grass snake?”
Before I could answer, I heard porch door open and then kitchen door.
It was Dad.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding slightly breathless. “What happened? Is she hurt?”
“She saw a snake, that’s all,” Mom replied.
I still had my face pressed tightly against her, but I thought she sounded exasperated.
“It was a BIG snake,” I sniffled.
Hah! I wondered how calm Mom would be if she had almost stepped on a fifty-foot boa constrictor. We had learned about boa constrictors in science class, and even smaller ones could eat rabbits in one swallow.
“Oh,” Dad said. “I thought maybe she’d hurt herself.” He quietly closed kitchen door and went back outside to finish loading oats.
As I stood there leaning against my mother, I became aware that she was trembling.
I took a step back.
Mom wasn’t trembling.
She was laughing—laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes.
I drew a shaky breath. “What’s so funny?”
“Hee-hee,” she spluttered. “Tee-hee.”
“It is NOT,” I said, drawing myself up to my full height, “funny.”
Mom nodded her head. “Yes, it is.”
She made her way over to table and sat down.
Wouldn’t you just know it. I was almost dragged away and killed by biggest snake I had ever seen, and all my mother could do was laugh. Now that I’d had time to think about it, snake by granary was at least as long as handle of push broom we used to sweep barn aisle.
I was beginning to wonder if my mother was ever going to stop laughing when she finally started to wipe her eyes.
“What,” I asked once again, “is so funny?”
“Your poor father,” she said, as fought back another snicker “There he was, out there in granary, loading oats, minding his own business…and then…well…”
Dad? My mother was laughing because…?
She was laughing because Dad must have run to house as fast as I did. If not faster.
The thought of Dad running almost made me forget about snake.
I had never seen Dad run anywhere. Sometimes he walked pretty fast. But I’d never seen him run.
“He probably wondered if you fell out of tree and broke your arm, or something,” Mom explained.
“Oh,” I said.
In a little while after I calmed down, I ventured outside again.
The truck was still parked in same place, but this time, I approached granary with extreme caution.
I even squatted down to look under pickup truck.
I didn’t see snake anywhere.
Not in grass.
Not by truck.
And not by granary step.
Then, and only then, did I consider it safe to squeeze past tailgate and climb into granary.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, waiting for my eyes to adjust after bright sunshine outside.
“That was a bull snake,” Dad said while he continued bagging oats.
My father had a funny way, sometimes, of knowing what I was going to ask before I could say it—except that knowing what kind of snake it was didn’t make me feel any better.
“He’s a good snake,” Dad added. “I’ve seen him around here a lot. He helps us. He hunts mice, like kitties hunt mice. We want him to be around granary.”
“He’s a good snake?”
As far as I was concerned, there was no such a thing as a ‘good’ snake.
“Will he bite?” I asked.
I had watched cats hunt mice, and I understood why Dad didn’t want mice in granary. He said cows wouldn’t eat feed if it had mouse droppings in it. I didn’t blame them. Who would want to eat something that had mouse droppings in it?
“No,” Dad said, dumping another shovel of oats in bag, “the snake won’t hurt you. I suppose he was taking a sunbath when you saw him. The sun is warm today, but that wind is awfully chilly.”
By now, I was starting to feel a tiny bit guilty about my terrified, screaming reaction to snake. If my father said he was a good snake—and that he was only taking a sunbath, just like kitty by porch had been taking a sunbath—then maybe it wasn’t quite so bad.
“Tell you what,” Dad continued, using a short section of string to tie bag shut with a miller’s knot, “whenever you’re around granary, keep an eye out for bull snake. That way, next time you see him, he won’t be so scary.”
“Are you sure he won’t bite?” I asked.
Dad heaved full bag of oats into truck.
“No, kiddo,” he said. “The snake won’t bite. In fact, I’d even be willing to bet that you scared him more than he scared you.”
I seriously doubted snake had been more scared than me, but I kept it to myself.
For a long time after that, whenever I went near granary, I looked for bull snake.
But I never saw him again.
And neither did Dad.
“What do you suppose happened to that snake, Daddy?” I asked one day a few weeks later when he was loading oats again.
“I think you scared him away,” Dad said, taking another burlap bag and hooking it over a nail to hold up one side while he shoveled oats into it. “He probably decided to go live someplace else where it was quieter.”
“Do you really think he moved?” I asked. “Just because of that?”
My father nodded solemnly. “Snakes don’t want to be where there’s a lot of commotion. You wouldn’t like it if someone screamed just because they saw you, would you?”
I thought about that for a few moments. “No, Daddy. I wouldn’t like it.”
I hoped, then, that snake had found a nice place to live, a quiet place where his afternoon sunbath wouldn’t be interrupted by blood-curdling screams of terror.
And with any luck at all, it would also be someplace where I wouldn’t almost step on him again.
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