been laid in the tomb, that mother was
pleased to have her cheer up, even enough to go snake hunting.

That afternoon Mehitabel Heasty had come to visit May, so she went
along, and I followed. They poked around the driftwood at the
floodgate behind the barn, and were giving up the place. Candace had
crossed the creek and was coming back, and May had started, when she
saw a tiny little one and chased it. We didn't know then that it was a
good thing to have snakes to eat moles, field mice, and other pests
that bother your crops; the Bible had no mercy on them at all, so we
were not saving our snakes; and anyway we had more than we needed,
while some of them were too big to be safe to keep, and a few poison as
could be. May began to bruise the serpent, when out of the driftwood
where they hadn't found anything came its mammy, a great big
blacksnake, maddest you ever saw, with its pappy right after her, mad
as ever too. Candace screamed at May to look behind her, but May was
busy with the snake and didn't look quick enough, so the old mammy
struck right in her back. She just caught in the hem of May's skirt,
and her teeth stuck in the goods--you know how a snake's teeth turn
back--so she couldn't let go. May took one look and raced down the
bank to the crossing, through the water, and toward us, with the snake
dragging and twisting, and trying her best to get away. May was
screaming at every jump for Candace, and Mehitabel was flying up and
down crying: "Oh there's snakes in my shoes! There's snakes in my
shoes!"

That was a fair sample of how much sense a Heasty ever had. It took
all Mehitabel's shoes could do to hold her feet, for after one went
barefoot all week, and never put on shoes except on Sunday or for a
visit, the feet became so spread out, shoes had all they could do to
manage them, and then mostly they pinched until they made one squirm.
But she jumped and said that, while May ran and screamed, and Candace
gripped her big hickory stick and told May to stand still. Then she
bruised that serpent with her whole foot, for she stood on it, and
swatted it until she broke its neck. Then she turned ready for the
other one, but when it saw what happened to its mate, it decided to go
back. Even snakes, it doesn't seem right to break up families like
that; so by the time Candace got the mammy killed, loose from May's
hem, and stretched out with the back up, so she wouldn't make it rain,
when Candace wasn't