The six-foot-long black snake slithered out ahead of me as I ran through a neighboring farmer’s freshly mown hayfield. It was late summer of 1976 and we had recently moved to rural Dent County, Missouri. The fields and woods of the local area were ripe for exploring. Running across the field, I nearly trampled the snake. It startled me at first but I soon realized the snake offered promise to control mice and rats in the barn. So I chased the reptile down and caught it. Grasping the snake behind the head, its long body coiled around my right arm.
The walk home was sort of a long one, especially carrying a big snake, so I walked up to a small farmhouse a short distance from the hayfield. I knocked on the side door to the kitchen. and an old woman, Mrs. Wolf, answered the door. She was at least 80 years old and a few inches shy of five feet tall.
“My, my young man! What do you have there?”
“Ummm, ah, yeah. Ma’am, I have a snake.”
“I can see that.”
“Ma’am, do you have a paper sack I could put my snake in?”
“Of course! Of course! Come right in.”
I stepped into the old kitchen, snake-in-hand. There was a hand pump at the sink, an old white refrigerator with a round, domed door and chrome pull, a white Formica table with chrome legs and matching chairs. The old woman tottered with the aid of her cane over to the refrigerator, reached down and grabbed a brown paper bag from between the refrigerator and wall. She turned toward me and popped the bag open with a snap of her wrist. Reaching toward me she demanded, “Let me have that thing.” And then the sub-five-foot octogenarian deftly snatched the six-foot-long snake out of my hand quick as a wink, dispatching the serpent with a swish followed by the crunch and curl of the bag. “Here you go, young man!” and she handed the paper bag with snake back to me. Dumbfounded and majorly impressed, I left.
When I got home, Mom met me in the yard.
“What’s in the bag?” she inquired.
“Vegetables from Mrs. Wolf.”
Things went downhill from there.
Dash Stories 