A Now and True Snake Story.

Evening Star, Issue 6819, 5 February 1886, Page 4

A Now and True Snake Story.

In the early days, when Texas was very sparsely settled, and fences were few and far between, venomous snakes were exceedingly numerous all over the Lone 8 tar hit ate. The women of those days were not afraid of snakes. If a snake of an inquiring turn of mind was found intruding upon the privacy of a family, the lady of the shanty did not ascend a table or chair and jar the geology of the State with her shrieks. On the contrary, she gathered a fence rail or a gun, and bruised the serpent’s head with it. After one of those frontier women had expostulated with a serpent, the latter was a mass of tottering ruins, so to speak. A great many persons were bitten by snakes. The person who placed his foot heedlessly upon a snake was sure to find it out immediately. Notwithstanding that largo numbers of these offensive partisans were removed every day, there seemed to be no falling-oil’ in the crop. For this reason a jug of whisky was to be found without much trouble in every house. It was rarely empty. The liquid gin, as the Prohibitionists call it, only costs 10c a gallon, so being bitten by a rattlesnake was a luxury in which the humblest citizen might revel The Texas snake of those early days was a very familiar, sociable kind of reptile. He had a free and easy way of insinuating himself into the beds of tbe early settler, who, for this reason, kept the whiskey jug near his couch where he could put his hand on it in case of danger. Farmer Smith was a jovial man who loved practical jokes. lie loved to laugh. He settled on the Santa Clara Creek, near New Braunfels. The neighborhood was so infested with snakes that he and his wife were kept busy killing them. His mind ran on snakes. If his wife was at the washtub, he would sneak up behind her and yell out — “ Roon! Lina, roon! ter vash a schnake a nibblin’ at you.” His wife would reply by hurdling some soap suds at him and calling him a “ scliakass,” but he did not scare her enough to afford him much amusement. She tumbled to the snake racket, and remained somewhat impassive.

Ou such occasions Schmidt would become despondent, and, sitting down on a stump, would say confidentially to himself “ that if he didn’t get a chanco to have.a real good laugh pretty soon, that he would go off in a galloping consumption,” One evening a happy thought occurred to him. He took his long black snake whip and secreted it in the bed. When his wife retired, he gently pulled the whip across her feet, and raised the old familiar cry of “Schnake, Lina, a schnake ! ” She was, of course, very much frightened, but as soon as she took in the situation she pursued him all over the farm, he being in his short stop clothes, and almost pounded the life out of him with the broomstick.

One morning early, while courting the drowsy god, father Schmidt felt something cold and clammy crawl over his feet. With a bound lie was out, yelling “A schnake, Lina, a schnake!” He threw so much vociferousness into his voice, that his startled wife also sprang from the couch. “So help me, Jiminy Grashes, dere vash sure enough a schnake dot pet in !” exclaimed Schmidt, and his eyes protruded like door knobs. His wife gently removed a portion of the bedclothes, and, perceiving a black thing coiled up, she seized the end nearest her and began laying it over her husband. The more he dodged and shrieked, the more she whipped him for scaring her with the whip, as she supposed it was ; but he knew it was a real live black mocasin, the most venomous snake in the business. Whenever his wife struck him with the snake, which she had seized by the tail, the poisoned fangs were buried in his flesh. The snake was made harmless by the force of her blows, and then she perceived her dreadful mistake.

Unfortunately the whisky jug was empty, and poor Schmidt died before assistance could be procured, the victim of his own foolishness.

His grave is on the Santa Clara Creek, in Comal County. ‘ Texas Siftings.’