Very talkative people always seemed to me to be divided into two
classes--those who lie for a purpose and those who lie for the love of
lying; and Sam Baxter belonged, with broad impartiality, to both. With
him falsehood was not more frequently a means than an end; for he
would not only lie without a purpose but at a sacrifice. I heard him
once reading a newspaper to a blind aunt, and deliberately falsifying
the market reports. The good old lady took it all in with a trustful
faith, until he quoted dried apples at fifty cents a yard for unbolted
sides; then she arose and disinherited him. Sam seemed to regard the
fountain of truth as a stagnant pool, and himself an angel whose
business it was to stand by and trouble the waters.
"You know Ben Dean," said Sam to me one day; "I'm down on that fellow,
and I'll tell you why. In the winter of '68 he and I were snaking
together in the mountains north of the Big Sandy."
"What do you mean by snaking, Sam?"
"Well, _I_ like _that_! Why, gathering snakes, to be
sure--rattlesnakes for zoological gardens, museums, and side-shows to
circuses. This is how it is done: a party of snakers go up to the
mountains in the early autumn, with provisions for all winter, and
putting up a snakery at some central point, get to work as soon as the
torpid season sets in, and before there is much snow. I presume you
know that when the nights begin to get cold, the snakes go in under
big flat stones, snuggle together, and lie there frozen stiff until
the warm days of spring limber them up for business.
"We go about, raise up the rocks, tie the worms into convenient
bundles and carry them to the snakery, where, during the snow season,
they are assorted, labelled according to quality, and packed away for
transportation. Sometimes a single showman will have as many as a
dozen snakers in the mountains all winter.
"Ben and I were out, one day, and had gathered a few sheaves of prime
ones, when we discovered a broad stone that showed good indications,
but we couldn't raise it. The whole upper part of the mountain seemed
to be built mostly upon this one stone. There was nothing to be done
but mole it--dig under, you know; so taking the spade I soon widened
the hole the creatures had got in at, until it would admit my body.
Crawling in, I found a kind of cell in the solid rock, stowed nearly
full of beautiful serpents, some of them as long as a man. You would
have revelled in those worms! They were neatly disposed about the
sides of the cave, an even dozen in each berth, and some odd ones
swinging from the ceiling in hammocks, like sailors. By the time I had
counted them roughly, as they lay, it was dark, and snowing like the
mischief. There was no getting back to head-quarters that night, and
there was room for but one of us inside."
"Inside what, Sam?"
"See here! have you been listening to what I'm telling you, or not?
There is no use telling _you_ anything. Perhaps you won't mind waiting
till I get done, and then you can tell something of your own. We drew
straws to decide who should sleep inside, and it fell to me. Such luck
as that fellow Ben always had drawing straws when I held them! It was
sinful! But even inside it was coldish, and I was more than an hour
getting asleep. Toward morning, though, I woke, feeling very warm and
peaceful. The moon was at full, just rising in the valley below, and,
shining in at the hole I'd entered at, it made everything light as
day."
"But, Sam, according to _my_ astronomy a full moon never rises towards
morning."
"Now, who said anything about your astronomy? I'd like to know who is
telling this--you or I? Always think you know more than I do--and
always swearing it isn't so--and always taking the words out of my
mouth, and--but what's the use of arguing with _you_? As I was saying,
the snakes began waking about the same time I did; I could hear them
turn over on their other sides and sigh. Presently one raised himself
up and yawned. He meant well, but it was not the regular thing for an
ophidian to do at that season. By-and-by they began to poke their
heads up all round, nodding good morning to one another across the
room; and pretty soon one saw me lying there and called attention to
the fact. Then they all began to crowd to the front and hang out over
the sides of the beds in a fringe, to study my habits. I can't
describe the strange spectacle: you would have supposed it was the
middle of March and a forward season! There were more worms than I had
counted, and they were larger ones than I had thought. And the more
they got awake the wider they yawned, and the longer they stretched.
The fat fellows in the hammocks above me were in danger of toppling
out and breaking their necks every minute.
"Then it went through my mind like a flash what was the matter.
Finding it cold outside, Ben had made a roaring fire on the top of the
rock, and the heat had deceived the worms into the belief that it was
late spring. As I lay there and thought of a full-grown man who hadn't
any better sense than to do such a thing as _that_, I was mad enough
to kill him. I lost confidence in mankind. If I had not stopped up the
entrance before lying down, with a big round stone which the heat had
swollen so that a hydraulic ram couldn't have butted it loose, I
should have put on my clothes and gone straight home."
"But, Sam, you said the entrance was open, and the moon shining in."
"There you go again! Always contradicting--and insinuating that the
moon must remain for hours in one position--and saying you've heard it
told better by some one else--and wanting to fight! I've told this
story to your brother over at Milk River more than a hundred million
times, and he never said a word against it."
"I believe you, Samuel; for he is deaf as a tombstone."
"Tell you what to do for him! I know a fellow in Smith's Valley will
cure him in a minute. That fellow has cleaned the deafness all out of
Washington County a dozen times. I never knew a case of it that could
stand up against him ten seconds. Take three parts of snake-root to a
gallon of waggon-grease, and--I'll go and see if I can find the
prescription!"
And Sam was off like a rocket.
* * * * *