Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1892 — A Moccasin Among the Hobbys. [ARTICLE]

A Moccasin Among the Hobbys.

BY RICHARD M. JOHNSTON.

I vary well remember Little Joe Hobby, who, when 1 was a child, was one of my father’s near neighbors and friends. Ho was not so very, very little. They called hitn so in distinction from ,a big cousin of the same name. Everybody liked him. Even Maggy Tiller over and over again said that she thought a great deal of Joe. Yet she gave hor hand in preference to tho big cousin,and so Littlo Joe, sorrowful as it all was, had to bear it ns well as lie could. Maggy, noticing at her very lust refusal how hardly' ho took it, offered the consolation, which at such a time, if a girl would only reflect for a moment, is the very poorest to be thought of. Sho told him to never mind, for that it wouldn't bo so very long before he would find a girl to suit him to a t, and then lio would bo just running over with joy that lio hadn't* married Maggy Tiller. Indeed, Maggy was very sorry for his distress, so sho must say something, and she didn't know of anything better. Then he rose, and, after shaking good-by, said: “No, Maggy, I can't got you; but I’ll never marry anybody else.” He went to the wedding, and with the other guests extended congratulations, and partook with reasonable zest of tho good things. Afterwards he was as good a neighbor ns beforo, and a good cousin to both. My father said, out of course only in tho family, that if ho had been in Maggy Tiller’s place he would havo tnkon Little Joe, and let Big Joo go somewhere else; for in his opinion Little Joo was more of a man; and so, he suspected, thought Maggy’s mother. However, he added, nobody can ever foresee what girls will do in such cases. Joe—Little Joe, I mean—tried to go ! along about us he had been doing before i his bad luck, ns ho called it; for ho never denied a single tiling. But he was as healthy in mind us in body, and he felt that if Maggy and the other Joo could do well, so far as he was concerned, they were welcome to do so. Indeed, ho was a bettor friend to them than Jim Hobby, Big Joe's older brother, whom Maggy hud cast aside also, and who in a pot went off and married Mandy Brake, who wasn't as pretty as Maggy and had rather poor health besides. And they did do well, —tlint is moderately well. If Big Joe's industry, niunngement and prudence had corresponded with hia physical proportions, they would have done splendidly. As it was, out of tho good pieco of ground which they owned, they mado quite enough to live on, and perhaps a tritio over; but not nigh what Littlo Joo, who continued to livo with his mother, contrived to put aside ycarlv for rainy days. The two families lived only a milo apart, and visiting continued to bo kept up the satno us if nothing had happened. ! In decent time after the birth of their baby, Little Joo wont over there and j handed around his congratulations again. I When the baby was darned Joi ho, had to congratulate again; and ho did so, .like tho man he was. it may have soemed to him somewhat monotonous whonever ho was there that tho father was everlastingly saying that in some points, indeed in almost every single blessed point, he had not a doubt that that baby was nhoad of anything of its age that could be found in the whole State, let alone the county. “Why, Joo,” he said, more times than his hearer could recall, “Maggv’ll tell you herself that sometimes 1 have to loose my mule from the plough half an hour before the dinner-horn blows, I want to see him so bad.—Look’ee here, Joe,” ho said nigh as many times to the baby, “you know who that is sitting in that chair? You don’t? Why, that’s your cousin Joe, same name as you. Not named after him exactly, but all tho same. Ask Cousin Joe if he don’t wish ho had a Joo like you.” At such times Maggy smiled a little scold; but it did no good. He would go on about it, and keep at it, not even stopping at the dinner-table, occasionally getting up and making Littlo Joe get up, repair to the bed or the cradle whereon that baby was lying, and note how, when he was not crowing, he would be trying, just for the fun of it, to ram his fists or the coverlet into his ever-open mouth. And then sometimes ho would crown all by crying to the youngster about thus: “Going to bo a big man some day, nron’t you?—a heap bigger than Cousin Joe.”

Such things he did often, not from any thought of malice towards his cousin, but out of mere exuborancoof tho consciousness of his superiority to him. Little Joo endured it ull, and did what he could in simple ways to help them along. Once, when the baby was thought to be dangerously sick, ho went there at nights, and, ►vhile the father slept; watched with tho mother during the silent hours. Before Big Joe was awake next morning he would be gone to his work. During that time Jim Hobby never onee came there. His wifo did, and wanted to' help; but Muggy , knowing that she was not strong enough to do uuy good, thanked her and sent her home. One would tljnk that such ns that ought always to come to an end. Sometimes it does, as in this case itdid. Early in August, when the baby was only a few weeks old, Big Joe got sick himself. People said it was from having had too much Fourth of July. Whatever was the cause, no sort of medicine, old women’s nor doctors’, could cure him; and so he died, leaving Maggy a poor, lonesome widow. With her baby she moved back to her mother’s, and it was not so very long before she began to look as bright as ever, and perhaps some prettier. I could not undertake to say exactly how Little Joe feh on the occasion of his cousin's death; but he said and he did what was becoming,—no more, no less. He helped to put him away docently, and then helped Maggy to do what was to b« done before she could get back to her native place. As for the baby, while he did not—because he could not — show the pride which hie father in.

dulged, yet be was even more considerate of its wants. It was only a few minutes' walk to the Tillers’, and ho went thore almost every day. The devotion shown by him to that baby was not without its return, as it was not long before the latter showed himself to be as well pleased with his cousin's society as ever he had been with that of his father. Even Jim began to tako an interest which ho had not shown in his brother's lifetime. During tho summer days of the following year, when Muggy’s work took her out of the house she put tho baby in his cradle, which sho had removed to a nice spot in the shudo of a large Mogul plumtree that stood not far from the dairy. Occasionally sho wont by to see if any wood-insect had invaded his couch, or, if he was awake, to havo a littlo chat by way of reassuring him against any sense of abandonment or too profound solitude. For he was not one of those exacting babies who are everlastingly wanting to bo waited on, und shaken up, and sung to, claiming all the attention they can get, und more besides, not only in the day, but in the very night. What that baby wanted, after his many meals und his as many sleeps, was the consciousness that congenial society was in convenient call. His health was as perfect as the very morning, and whenever ho cried you might feel sure either that a pin was sticking somewhere, or that something else was the matter which no grown-up person could bo expected to endure without complaint At such time, when Littlo Joe was thero, he hovered around that cradle as if the most precious of his treasures lay therein. Such devotion, in all the circumstances, must have touched any hourt, unless it wero of stone. Yet when, towards tho beginning of tho full, Littlo Joe began to plead as once beforo ho had dono so all in vain, Maggy cried and bogged him to stop it. Ho did as ho was bidden, but with an inward resolve not to stop for good as long as things stood as they wore. For she showed as plainly ns day, oven to tho humble Littlo Joe, that she didn’t want him to quit coming to tho houso, particularly now that Mrs. Jim Hobby had died, and so another gloom had been thrown over the family. Littlo Joe would have been ashamed to be eallod a hero if lie had known what that meant. Yet in tho action which I am now going to toll, my father uSM to say that there was as heroic behavior as much of that one reads of in tbe careers of those who

subdue Nations and bring homo spoils with infinite Manslaughter. Among venomous reptiles in the Southern States, next to the rattle-snake the one most dreaded is tho moccasin. Its bite, oxcept upon very young persons, is soldom fatal; but very ofton its victim hr.s to lose some portion of the limb which has been struck. The most prompt treatment is necessary to prevent much suffering and other serious consequences. I shall let Little Joo speak for himself about an encounter which he had with ono of those reptiles. One morning, having come over to our houso on some little mattor about the line-fence, as he was ascending the steps of the piazza my father said: “Good-morning, Joe. Why, hello! what’s the matter with your thumb, that you’vo got it wrapped in that cloth?” “Mornin’, squire. Then you hadn’t heard about my snake-fight?” “No, indeed. I’ve been away from home for a couple of weeks, getting back only last night. It seems you got the worst of it.” “I did for a while; but I come up with him beforo it was all over.” “My goodness, man! But I'm very glad it was no worso.” “So am I—thankful to boot. What time it lasted, it was a right serious business, countin’ in my skear, and Maggy's too.” “Ay, was Maggy in it also?” “Not in the tight, she wasn’t, but in the skear she were, worse off than me; fact is, she couldn’t help it, bein’ of her own baby.” “My! my! Tell mo about it.” Smoothing tenderly the cloth around his thumb, he began: “ It was on Thursday three weeks ago. I walked over to Missis Tiller's, I reckon the sun wero about, a hour or a hour and a half high. Muggy wero a-sweepin’ the front yard about the gate. Her ma wero fono over to Missis Kcenuin’s, and the aby wero layin’ in the cradle asleep under the big plum-tree, you know, squire, thero By the dairy.” “Very well. Finest Mogul plum-tree in tho neighborhood.” “Jes’so. Well, soon as I got in the yard, and shook hands with Maggy, I went on silent to seo the baby, who him and mo are first-rate frionds, we are.” “So I hoard. Go ahead.”

“ When I got there, lo and behold, thero were a great big full-grown highland moccasin quiled up on the baby’s breast, all exception of his head and his neck, which stoochhigh up, and his eyes a-viewin’ of the child, like he were studyin’ where ho’d begin on him. 1 holloed out, I did,and Maggy she coaioarunnin’ up; but I pushed her back and told her to stay back and keep silent. jShe done it. She put one hand ’on her breast and lifted the other towards the sky. At that minute Jim come in tho gate, and he run up to see what were the matter. Then he told me to stay there and watch the snake till he could run in the gurdou and cut a forked stick and prong hiin/with it So Jim he left, and tho fight" begun. Soon as the thing saw me, Tie whirled his head away from the baby for a strike at me. And, squire, it were tbe fieriest, beautifullest thing you over laid your eyes on. He were certain, well us I were, that it were a life-and-d nth case; because there wasn’t any chance for him to get away into the woods, and I no doubt he saw fight was in me. But 1 didn’t have one blessed thing except my hands, and if I'd had a stick tho question would been what to do with it, him a-layin’ there on tho baby. To make things worse, he woke, the baby did, and he begun asmilin’ at me, and I were skeered nigh out of my senses, thinkin’ he might kick or throw up his hands, so the snake would turn on him ngain. Then I got mad, sure enough, and I said to myself,- ‘No, sir, not that baby. If its got to be anybody, it shall be me.’ Every time I made a grab at its neck, he dodged and struck at me. Well, sir, it’s wonderful how supple the thing were. I thought 1 had him once or twice, but he slipped from my fingers like a piece of ice, and mighty nigh as bold, and several times with his strike he were in the width of a hair of gettin’ me. All of a sudden I thought of my hat, and thinks I to myself, ‘Blast you, I’ll try to hive you!’ And 1 done it, after a few wipes at him; but as I was pressin’ him down he put his tooth in the ball of my left hand thumb. But I grabbed him by the tail, give him a whirl or two like o*wj»ipthong, then, fetchin’ a jerk, slung his head off. You know thnt’s the quickest way in the world to kill ’em. Then Maggy come up, she did, and she

snatched up her baby, who was kickin’ his level best at tho fun; but I told her to lay him down for a minute, take a twine string out of my coat pocket, and tie it tight around my thumb where I were holdin’ it. For don't you know, squire, it come to my mind that very minute of Jay Roberts losin’ his whole thumb three year ago that a moccasin bit, and that under the water? Yes, sir, that it did. Maggy screamed, but she done as I told her. Then I told her to go and make a pot of red-pepper tea, boilin’ hot, not thinkin’ thero was a drop of sperits in the house. Soon as she* got away, I hauled out my knife. I give it a wipe or two on the bottom of my shoe, and then Well, squire, whoever thinks thore’s fun in cuttin’ off their own thumb at the j’int, they’re welcome to it. But I grinned and got through with the job, and by that time Maggy’s ma got back. She told Maggy to fling that pepper tea away, and then she got out a level tumblerful of whiskey and come out and made me drink evory drop of it. And then, while Maggy was fixin’ to tie up what was left of my thumb, she, aknowiu’ I couldn’t oarry all that load of whiskey,she made me go to bed, and,tell you the truth, squire,l never remembered unother thing till nextmornin’ daybreak, when I woke up, callin’ for wator.” “ But where was Jim all this time? ” “ They told me after it was all over tnat Jim came back with his forked stick, assayin’ it took longer than he thought to get one to suit. Missis Tiller said she thanked him, and told him that he better put it away keerful, as it might como in handy next time.” “That’s Jim; that’s exactly Jim,” said my father. “But, Joe Hobby, don’t tell me you came away from that house without getting Maggy’s word, after what I told you of the importance of being brisker in some of your ways, especially since Jim has become a widowor.” “Oh, no, sir. I thought it were a good chance to follow up your advice, and I put in for her as well as I could; and she said that, in all tho circumstances, she wasn’t sure but what it was her duty.” “That's good! that’s first-rate! ” “But, law, squire! she declare she must put off the weddin’ for at least one whole year.” “Nonsonso! You toll Maggy, from me, that, after all you’ve done for her and that baby, I say that I think it very hard to be putting itroff so long, and that if any accident was to happen to you in all that lonesome while she’d never forgive herself.” He carried the words, and in a few days afterwards reported that they had compromised on Easter. —[Lippincott.