Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-02-20
JABE COOKS TWO RATTLERs.
He Caught One Asleep, But Never CouId Tell Eo1y He Gnt the 0ther.

He Caught One Asleep, But Never
 Could Tell How He Got the Other.
 "No, young man, can't tell you noth in' not but there's things enough hap. pened along the Delaware, an, for that matter, right here in CalIicoon, to fill a hundred little books ehock full but 1 ain't no composer. But 1 wish to land you'd come round before Jabe Cook died. He could 'commodated you with as many yarns as you could shake a stick at True ones? Of course. Jabe want no great hand on lyin'-not gin orally. He ferried here for-oh, l don't know how long. Begun when l was boy. Run a small boat, an when there was teams or many people took them over in a big scow.
 "There ain't scasly any heft of work bout runnin' a scow. Jabe wouldn't a-took to it if there had been, for he was sort of lazy eoot-didn't banker after work. When you pole out all git pinted right the seow'Il run itself, an then there's time for swappin' horses an tallin'. That's where Jabe's talent come in-on taIl1in'. He could talk a blue streak-beat the hull shootin' match at it. 1t beat all how much he knowed about everybody for miles round. An when he begun on one O his stories he was bound to go through with it. Never knqxed him to leave a story halfway but oncet.
 "One day a passel of us young chaps had been up Hollister brook ishin'. When we got back to the ferry Jabe want to be seen, an we set down on the beach to wait for him to come an take us acrost the river. We'd been settin' quite a spell, when all of a suddint we heard him shoutin' an callin' to us. He was co min from an old stone quarry, an swan if the feller didn't have live rattlesnake in each hand. We were fast enough bout runnin' to meet him, but little skittish bout gettin' very clost to the snakes, until we were sure he had each one gripped clost enough to the head so's it couldn't turn to bite. It's safe enough carryin' rattlers that way if you hold on tight. The day was hot an Jabe was that excited he fairly stuttered a-tryin' to tell us how he ketched the snakes, an the way we slung questions at him didn't help to cool him down none. A city chap, he said, had promised him five dollars an good jacklnife for live rattler. He'd kinder ealkerlated on findin' one that day because all the signs were bout right for their bein' out.
 "'Say,' interrupted Si Brown, 'ain't you gittin' to know most too much bout rattlers?'
 "'You'll know more about manners when you're growed up, was Jabe's answer. This was a sockdologer on Si, for, though he was nigh on to 40, he was little cuss.
 Well, Jabe's story was awful long, for he'd had ruther a rough-and-tumble sort of hunt, but the upshot of it all was he found the first rattler asleep behind holler log, an, said he, T crept up as still $ a cat after mouse, an reached over my forked stick an nabbeG him. An, suitin' his actions to his words, Jabe brought bis right hand over-brought it over too near the left. Quicker'n you could say Jack Robin son, the left-hand snake stuck his fangs into Jabe's right hand, an the right-hand snake did the same for his left hand.
 "Jabe's yells, which was enough to wake the dead, an the general thrash in round of arms an snakes, scart us boys till every one of us went liclSety split up the river bank. We went back when the snakes were gone am helped Jabe home. Si ran for the doctor, an I was soon a-leggin it up the road after wk!sSy.
 'No, Jabe didn't die, though he come within an ace of it. He felt awfuIly cut up bout the hull business, az to this day we don't know how he ketched that other snake"-N Y. Sun.