Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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Mr. Green crowded those normally slow plodding oxen, and we actually came to town by fits and spurts on the gallop. He wanted to buy whisky for me, and seemed awfully distressed when I refused it. He was so exercised over the matter that one easily could have believed that it was he who was in need of a generous slug of the stuff — and I’m not so sure that he didn’t get it. Anyway, I was ready to go out on time the next morning. Mr. Green was not. And you can bet your life I never again tried to poke a diamondback with a stick too short on one end.

Incidentally, I may say there were other close calls and near misses—not to overlook the one August day when a seven-button, (seven-year-old) rattlesnake actually made a ten-strike on my bare foot. And though always to me a bit hazy, I can now assure you that this is no dream. Just why I would stand still by the side of the hole into which I had poured water in the hope of drowning out a ground squirrel, and watch that snake slither up through the grass, coil and strike, before going down the hole, has always been something for me to ponder.