The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-12
"Cy. brIng the strangers in. 2

The word snakes affected the Wo- men just as it had previously affected "Cy" and their faces immediately with signs of keen interest. So anxious were they to discuss what seemed to them a question of all-ab- sorbing interest that they all began to chatter at once. Half regretfully, "Cy' said to the reporter:
 If you want ter hear bout snakes you'd better talk to Ellen Jane, cause she's the champion"
 Then Ellen Jane, seating herself on the bed and swinging her bare feet about, all the chairs in the house being occupied by "Cy," the guide and the re- porter, she began:
 q am Mrs. Ellen Jane White. I've been married; see"-pointing her finger to a certificate which hung on one of the walls of the cabin.
 "Yes,' added the elder woman.
 Keep still, Granny" "Cy' remon- strated. Mothers a snake hunter, too, you know" he said to the visitors, 'and she wants to tell bout her haunts."
 Granny" who is the mother of "Cy" and Ellen Jane, departed into the ad- joining room, and Ellen Jane contin- ued.
 I'm ben killin' snakes ever sence l was big enough to knock 'em over. l was born here and ben here ever sence. Now I'm thirty-eight years old, and I 'spect to be here till I die. As long as am here I'm goin' snake huntin' every season.
 When I was little girl" she con tinued, T used to go out in the noun tin berryin' with 'Cy,' who is older than me-ain't you, 'Cy?"
 "Cy" was holding his stubby beard in his hand and looking curiously at the pencil and the paper. He nodded as- sent.
 T saw how 'Cy' killed 'em," Ellen Jane went on, and I just thought I'd kill few myself and go in the bisness. So started out on my own hook. You don't know how to hunt rattlers, do you?" she asked of the stranger, and before a reply could be made she cons tinued: T always kill 'em at their dens. They make their dens in the cracks between and under the rocks. They come out bout the first of April, if the weather is warm, and take look around, but they never leave their bed for good until Tout the middle of May
 "The first sunshiny day in April I al ways take my stick (pointing to the corner of a room where stood heavy oaken staff about seven feet long, two inches thick at the large end, with a knob something like that of a golf stick and becoming thinner near the handle) and go out on the hunt. Sometimes you can hear 'em inside the rock and sometimes you can only find 'enl by knowin' how to look for enl.
 Snakes are queer things-not like people" she said. ''I have seen about usually find about two dozen in fam- fly. The biggest kill of the varmints ever made at one time and at one place, when laid 'en out, was two hundred and nine. That was bout three miles from here, and it kept me busy gittin' my stick on their heads. I was huntin' for 'em and I found 'em They was all layin' up in balls. When I heard the rattle I peeped round the rock, and what saw made my eyeballs crack. The ball of snakes was as big as a peck measure. had my stick and I began to strike, and they began to set up noise laid on lick after lick un- til I had cleaned out the whole mess. First lick know I killed as many as twenty. Some tried to run away, but jest tapped 'em on the head, while oth- CTS was jumpin' at me, and when I got through with them air rattlers l had enough for that day.
 Another time when I was huntin' I found a den with a hundred in it, which I killed. In the lot was one snake from whose tail took eighteen rattles and a button That meant that he was eighteen years old. The next biggest Kill was bout twenty-five. I was out berryin' one day and started to set down on a rock. As I did so I heard a rattle and dropped my buck ct, grabbed my stick and soon saw a big brown rattler coiled up all ready to spring. I put his light out and then set down and rested myself.
 You see we's all snake-hunters. Pappy was fore he died; mother was fore she was too old to go out, and 'Cy' and me will keep 1t up as long as we live"
 And there was Grant" sadly inter- rupted "Cy."
 Yes he was as good as any of us,' replied Ellen Jane. Grant was our dog, but he's dead now. He, like the rest of us children, would kill snakes. He saw 'Cy' and me and he took up the bisness One day was comin' down the path" pointing up the mountain, and l saw Grant make dive at some thing in the path. He had rattler by the back and shook him in two. The rattler, though, bit him on the foot. Poor Grant! He rig up in the air and began to cry and then he fell over. l knowed what was the matter, cause it always makes you sick when a snake bites you. I took Grant up and went home with him.
 Did the dog die?" asked the visitor.
 "No, indeed, child, he didn't die. We greased his foot''
 Will grease cure snake bite?"
 NO, but it made the dog lick his foot and he licked all the poison out. But he wouldn't stop huntin snakes, and one day Q big snake bit him on the head where he couldn't reach the spot with his tongue, and that's what killed Grant"
 The old man sighed. "We ain't got no dog no more," he said.
 "I have never teen bitten in my life. , said Ellen Jane, in answer to ques- ton.
 
 "Cy," who had been sitting quietly by listening to Ellen lanes graphic story,