RATTLE SNAKES AND SPOT

This is another story about our courageous dog, Spot, and the monster snake. I will start this tale off, though, by giving you some idea about where our house was located.

We lived in a tiny farming town in Florida with dense woods and surrounding farm land. It was a great place for snakes to hang out since there were not many people around to pester them. That was very different from Mobile, Alabama, my home town. Well, you know, Mobile was the city and this was the country. Since they were so different, it became the most interesting and fascinating place ever for this 6 year old.

Now my mother was a city girl, and she did not find the country very interesting. In fact, she found it to be downright boring. My little brother was two years younger than me, and I think he may have been bored also, especially when I was at school.

My dad loved the country because he had his garden and chickens. He always had some kind of garden, even when we lived in the city.

I also think he was particularly proud of himself when he was able to find rattle snakes and send them to rattle snake heaven or hell. Take your pick! He disliked them very much.

I remember seeing these scary snakes stretched out on our dirt road sunning their scaly backs. I was always very leery of them and would go a long ways around so as to avoid them. We were told to look carefully wherever we walked, but despite our best efforts to be careful, we still had some close calls.

One day as we were walking to the garden, my brother stopped, as in a trance, he was watching a big rattler crawl across a path that we had just walked through. But you know that crazy snake just kept slithering along into the woods with all of us looking on. I guess we did not scare him much, but he sure scared us!

But I really have to tell you the story about Spot though, our dog, and his encounter with a huge rattle snake. It was totally incredible and amazing. Now, Spot was very unusual in that he loved to tease snakes. Can you imagine? I guess he was bored too. Anyway he would lunge and bark at these snakes until they would strike at him.

Somehow he always managed to dodge these snakes striking out with their fangs bared. We were always worried he might not move quick enough, but he was lucky or maybe he was just very fast because he was never bitten. He teased all kinds of snakes. It did not matter if they were black snakes, rattle snakes, or rat snakes. He thought they were all great sport. We thought for sure Spot would meet his match one day. But those snakes just could not strike fast enough to get old Spot.

Spot's biggest conquest though was a monster rattle snake. We heard him barking furiously down in the field one day, so my daddy figured it was a snake. He grabbed a hoe and headed off toward where Spot was barking.

It was not long before Daddy came running back to the house as pale as a ghost. He grabbed his shot gun, and at the same time, shouted to my Mom that the biggest snake he had ever seen was coiling up to bite Spot. Dad was worried that Spot would be bitten before he could make it back to him, but he did make it back in time to kill that big old snake before he could hurt our dog.

Now I probably don't remember everything perfectly, but I swear my dad said that monster snake was 12 feet long and as big around as his arm. I do know my dad did not often show any fear, but he was pretty upset this time.

We moved back to the city pretty soon after that, and I think that monster snake could have been part of the reason. My mother was not too happy about snakes and especially monster snakes.

- Kathleen Buxton is a writer of children’s books. She has written two books to date with a sequel due in late fall.

“Grandma, Tell Me A Story” is a collection of short stories. https://kathleenbuxtonstorytime.com/