THE STORY OF WRIGGLETTO.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue VIII, 14 August 1897, Page 355

THE STORY OF WRIGGLETTO.

(BY

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.)

IT was in the afternoon of a beautiful summer day, and Colonel Periwinkle had come np from the city to spend a day or two with his chum, who, by-the-way, was no less a person than the father of Jack and Mollie. They had all had dinner, and were now out upon the back verandah overlooking the magnificent river which flowed from the mountains to the sea, condescending on its way thither to beautify countless insignificant towns* which had grown up on its banks, among which was the one in which Jack and Mollie had been born and lived all their lives. Mollie was somewhat depressed, but Jack wss jubilant, and all because in the course of a walk they had had that morning Jack had killed a snake. ‘lt was fine,’ said Jack. ‘He was lying there in the sun, and I took a stone and put him out of his misery in two seconds.’ ‘ Well, I didn’t like it,’ said Mollie. ‘ I don’t care for snakes, but some how or other it seems to me we’d ought to have left him alone. He wasn’t hurting anybody off there. If he’d come walking on our place, that would have been one thing, but we went walking where he was, and he had as much right to take a sun-bath there as we had.’ ‘That’s true enough,’ put in Uncle Periwinkle. ‘ You’ve just about hit it, Mollie. It wasn’t polite in you, in the first place, to disturb his snakeship in his nap, and having done so, I can’t see why you wanted to kill him.’ ‘Oh, pshaw!’ said Jack. ‘What’s snakes good for except to kill ? I kill ’em every chance I get. They aren’t any good.’ ‘All right, Mr Jack,’ said the Colonel, quietly. ‘I suppose you know all about it; but I know a thing or two about snakes myself that don’t exactly agree with what you say. They are some good sometimes, and, as a matter of fact, as a general rule, they are less apt to attack you without reason than you are to attack them. I’ll never forget my old pet Wriggletto, and as long as I remember him I can’t help having a warm corner for snakes in my heart.’ Here the Colonel paused, and puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. ‘ Who was Wriggletto ?’ asked Jack. ‘ Who was he ?’ cried the Colonel. ‘ You don’t mean to say that I never told you about Wriggletto, my pet boa-constrictor, do you ?' ‘ You never told me,’ said Mollie. ‘ But I’m not everybody. Maybe you told some other little girl. ’ ‘ No, indeed !’ the Colonel replied. ' You are the only little girl I tell stories to, and as far as I am concerned, while I admit you are not everybody, you are somebody, and that’s more than everybody is. Wriggletto was a boa-constrictor I once knew in South America, and he was, without exception, the most remarkable bit of a serpent I ever met. Genial, kind, intelligent, grateful,

and useful! There’s a recommendation for you. Few men are all that— and few boa constrictors either, as far as that goes. I admit Wriggletto was an exception to the general run of serpents, but he was all that I claim for him, neverthless.’ * What kind of a snake did you say he was ?’ asked Jack. * A boa-constrictor, said Uncle Periwinkle; and I knew him in his childhood. I first encountered Wriggletto about ten miles out of Para on the river Amazon. He was being swallowed by a large boa-constrictor, and I saved his life by catching hold of his tail and pulling him out just as the other was getting ready to give the gulp which would have taken Wriggletto in completely, and placed him beyond all hope of ever being saved. * What was the other boa doing while you were saving Wriggletto ?’ asked Jack, who was fond always of hearing both sides to every question, and whose father therefore, hoped he might some day grow up to be a great judge. * He couldn’t do anything,’ returned the Colonel. * He was powerless as long as Wriggletto’s head stuck in his throat, and just before I got the smaller snake extricated I killed the other one. It was not a very dangerous rescue on my part as long as Wriggletto was likely to be grateful. I must confess that for a few minutes I was afraid he might not comprehend all I had done for him, and it was just possible he might attack me, but the hug he gave me when he found himself free once more was reassuring. After that there was nothing Wriggletto would not do for me. He seemed to learn in an instant that there were hundreds of little things to be done about the house of an old bachelor like myself which a willing serpent could do, and he made it his business to do those things; and when you, Master Jack, try in future to say that snakes are only good to kill and of no use to anyone, yon must at least make an exception in favour of Wriggletto.’ * I will,’ said Jack ; but yon haven’t told us the useful things he did for you yet.’ * I was about to do so,’ said the Colonel. * In the first place, before he learned how to do little things about the house for me, Wriggletto acted as a watch-dog, and you may be sure that nobody ever ventured to prowl around my house at night while Wriggletto slept out on the lawn. Para was quite full of conscienceless fellows, too, at the time, anyone of whom would have been glad to have a chance to relieve me of my belongings if they could get by my watch-snake. Two of them tried it, and Wriggletto wound his tail about them and crawled down to the Amazon, dragging them after him. Then he tossed them into the river, and came back to his post once more.’ * Did you see him do it, Uncle Periwinkle ?’ asked Mollie. •No,’l did not,’said the Colonel. ‘One of the robbers wrote a letter to the Para newspaper about it, complaining that any one should be allowed to keep a reptile like that around. He never acknowledged, of course, that he was a robber—said he was calling on business when the thing happened—but I knew better, and later on the other robber and he fell out, and they confessed that the business they had come on was to take away a few dozen gold coins of the realm which I was known to have in the house. * I bought Wriggletto a handsome silver collar after that, and it was generally understood that he was the guardian of my place, and robbers bothered me no more. Then he was finer than a cat for rats. On very hot days he would go off into the cellar, where it was cool, and lie there with his mouth wide open and his eyes shut, and catch rats by the dozens. They’d run around in the dark, and the first thing they’d know they’d stumble into Wriggletto’s mouth ; and as he was always hungry and liked rats, he’d swallow’em and lick his chops afterwards, just as yon or I do when we’ve swallowed a fine luscious peach. * But pleasantest of all the things Wriggletto did for me—and he was untiring in his attentions in that way—was keeping me cool on hot summer nights. Para, as you may have heard, is a pretty hot place at best, lying in a tropical region as it does, but sometimes it is awful for a man used to the Northern climate, as I am. The act of fanning one’s self, so far from cooling one off, makes one hotter than ever. Maybe yon remember how it was with the elephant in the poem : ‘ “ Oh. my, oh dearl” the elephant said, ** It is so awful hot! I’ve fanned myself for seventy weeks. And haven't cooled a jot.” 1 That was the way with me in Para on hot nights. I’d fan and fan and fan, but I couldn’t get cool until Wriggletto became a member of my family, and then I was all right. He used to wind his tail about a huge palm-leaf fan I had cut in the forest, so large that I couldn’t possibly handle it myself, and he’d wave it to and fro by the hour, with the result that my house was always the breeziest place in Para.’ ‘ Where’s Wriggletto now ?’ asked Jack. ‘ Heigho !’ said Uncle Periwinkle. • He died, poor fellow, and all because of that silver collar I gave him. He tried to swallow a jibola that entered my house one night on wickedness intent, and while Wriggletto’s throat was large enough when he stretched it to take down three jibolas, with a collar on which wouldn’t

stretch he couldn’t swallow one. He didn't know that, unfortunately, and he kept on trying and trying until the jibola got a quarter-way down, and there he stuck. Each swallow, of course, made the collar fit more tightly, and finally the poor fellow choked himself to death. I felt so badly about it that I left Para within a month, but meanwhile I had a suit of clothes made out of Wriggletto’s skin, and wore it for years, and then, when the clothes began to look worn, I had the skin retanned and made over into shoes and slippers. So you see that even after death he was useful to me. He was a faithful snake, and that is why when I hear people running down all snakes I tell the story of Wriggletto. ’ There was a pause for a few moments, when Jack said, ‘Uncle Periwinkle, is that a true story ?’ ‘True?’ cried the Colonel. ‘True? Why, my dear boy, what a question ! If you don’t believe it, bring me your atlas, and I’ll show you just where Para is.’ Jack did as he was told, and, sure enough, the Colonel did exactly as he said he would, which I think was very remarkable.