Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-02-07
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

where you make that square
turn to right by the entrance to
Key Largo and start down the
straight road toward Key West.
about 5 or 10 miles down, on
the left-hand side, toward the
sea.
Distance fools you along there
with those green water bitches
by the road and the high grass
and jungle, but for a long way
before you came TO this place
they h d signs stuck up on
stakes about their wonderful
stone crabs and wonderful turtle
steaks and pompano.
SO we finally came to II, and,
like / say, there was this girl,
or rather she was a woman
about, maybe. %, in Stacks and
a kitchen apron, and this little
kid was playing all alone in
little clearing, a kid maybe 3
or 4.
She was not bad looking. and
the place where you eat was in
screened place with screen
walls but a canvas roof. and
these people lived in a little
shanty-looking place out back.
So we got talking, like, you
know, you get talking with
strangers. and il turned out she
came from North Dakota, and
here il was. up around 100 de-
grees and back where she came
from probably 40 below. but she
says they can have Florida but
give her where she came from.
because she wasn't any Daniel
Boone. and pioneering was out
Of her line.
MOSQUITOES, brother, they
Nl eat the meat off your bones
in big hunks. and if you get Il
fiat along there at night it was
worth your life to stop, because
they would be attracted by your
lights, and sometimes you could
see those conks-what they call
the understanding naked TO
the waist and their hide would
be just black with mosquitoes.
but the conks they hardly feel
II on account OF something in
their blood.
But If you aren't a conSit's
murder. where back in Dakota
If yeu kill mosquito you have
II stuffed and put il in mu-
scum. and. furthermore. one
night Just lately. they had
painter on the roof and it like
to~Scared her crazy.
/ never heard any one call a
panther a painter in speaking.
although / read where. people
said like that IN books, SO l
thought for minute it was a.
you know. a house-painter got
drunk and went out lally-gag-
ging because, like | say, she was
pretty good looking. although
she had her husband there, ex-
cept he was down the road when
we were there, chopping down
weeds and cane with a machete
and setting out more signs
about his wonderful crabs and
turtle steak.
CHE heard this painter scream
~ ing and came out and saw the
bulge in the canvas where he
was sitting on the roof. so she
gave him a iab with a mop
handle, and before her husband
could get a shot at him he sailed
off into the weeds, and you
could see his white belly just as
pretty in the moonlight, but his
claws ripped the canvas like
some one cut it with a razor.
SO we said it was cute little
kid, and she said that was an
other thing why she wanted 10
quit pioneering. because the
week before the husband heard
a rattle in the weeds where he
was setting out those signs and
turned around and sloughed a
rattlesnake over the head as big
as an inner tube with his
machete and brought ii home at
noon and threw it in the yard.
Then after lunch he went back
to put out more signs, and he
said after work he was going TO
skin it and make a wonderful
snakeskin belt or sell it to some
tourist, because it was practi-
cally enormous and no holes in
it like when you shoot them.
! GO A LITTLE later she looked
~ out the kitchen door, and
there was the little kid playing
around the rattler and trying to
pet it, and the snake was coil
ing up and coming around from
the sock on the head with the
machete, because it wasn't dead
but only stunned.
SO she near died of fright, but
she quickly grabbed the old
mans automatic off the bureau
and ran back and whammed
the snake, and she had TO take
a terrible chance on killing her
own kid, but she didn't, and
while she was at it she let the
snake have five or six more.
And so when the old man
came home that night he raised
hell for shooting the beautiful
snakeSkin full of holes - so.
brother. she was all caught LID