The Osceola times., 1885-10-10
OlD.TiME SNAKES.
A Practical Joke Whose Recollection
Caused the Death Of Its Perpetrator.

Caused the Death Of Its Perpetrator.
In the olden time, when the prairies
of Illinois had not yet been fenced in.
snakes were plentiful.
In that day and age Of the world,
women did not gather up their skirts
and climb up on the table if anybody
Inadvertently said "mouse." They
seized rolling-pin, dust-brus or stove-
hook, and looked calmly around over
their shoulders as much as to say:
"Show me the bloody monster. Let
me get crack at him with this, and
let him examine himself with a micro
scope to see how much mouse is left.
Show me the horrd brute and let me
knock him out in one roundl"
The serpents that infested the unfet-
tered wastes of prairie were bad. They
were more numerous than black birds
are now, and some of them were so poi
sonous that il made mans leg swell
and sent him screaming to the whisky
jug to look at them. They roamed
through the orchards and meadows and
glided across the lawns and gardens
many times every day, and when the
members of the family were gathered
around the festal board at evening, the
boy or girl that had not killed one or
more snakes during the day was set
down as a lazy-bones and sent to bed
without supper in dire disgrace, but Of
ten redeemed himself or herself as the
case might be, by going to bed with
garter snake or two and hastily rising,
taking il by the tail and jerking Its head
off whip-cracker fashion. 1t was not
then an uncommon occurrence for men
and women to 90 to bed alone in the
evening and awake in the morning to
find a rattlesnake sharing his or her re-
pose, and when thrifty housewife
made such discovery as that, she did
not allow her bed-fellow to lie there and
doze away the best part of the day in
idleness. She got hoe and yanked him
out on the floor and then bruised his
head while he monkeyed around trying
to bruise her heel, just to carry out the
programme Of Genesis.
Old Soloman Snarman was practical
Joker to certain extent, and when he
removed with his wife Betsey, from York
State to Eelinoy," he was more or less
surprised at the amount of time he was
obliged to devote to snake killing. He
got to be monomaniac on snakes, and
they entered into his conversation by
day and his dreams by night until he
could not talk or think of anything else.
At last it came to such pass that poor
Betsey's life was one uninterrupted
round Of snakes. While bending over
her wash-tub, her spouse weuld stealth
lily approach her from behind and yell
''snakes!' 1t the top of his voice, but
she would whirl round and slap him
with handful-full of soap-suds and
then be would become melancholy
and have snake nightmare that night
for want of good, hearty laugh. Tn
der his condition of melancholia, he
grew thin and wretched and his diges-
ton began failing, so he resolved within
himself that unless he could have some
fun at Betsey's expense, he would grad
ually pine away and die, SO he went to
the barn and taking his black k-snake
whip out of the wagon, concealed it be-
tween the sheets of their bed. and when
Betsey's bare feet touched the whip, and
she stopped and breathed hard, solomon
sprang out of bed and yelled "snakesr'
at the top of his voice, and then they
slowly turned down the covers. and
Betsey trembled while they made the
discovery that it was the whip and not a
snake, and then she chased Solomon all
around the place and heIhad so much
fun that he felt himself coming back
from the tomb at a rousing gate.
To-day, Solomon is in his grave. He
has been there several years. He went
in hurry and several years before he
would have gone il he had not put his
whip in the bed. He awoke one night
and felt something cold gliding across
his feet, so he sprang out of bed with the
old cry of "snakesm and Betsey slowly
and grimly slid out OF bed on the oppo-
site side and then they turned up the
light and turned down the covers, and
Betsey. remembering her whip expe-
ricnce, seized the black thing that lay
there and fayed Solomon with it until
he lay on the floor bleating like sheep,
for he knew it was genuine snake,
while Betsey thought it another joke of
his with the whip. He always seemed
sad afterward, and in about year, he
died. victim of his own joke. Through
Nail