Snake In A Box

A Time to Remember
Snake in a Box
By Ronnie Powell
Minnie Pitts Powell was of Irish, English parents and in most respects a fearless woman who would have if necessary taken on a grizzly bear single handed to protect her children. A petite woman with red hair, blue eyes, a bit of a temper, quite innovative in all aspects of farm life and a wife, my mother and confidant.
A fox in the hen house was no match to Mother’s protective instinct, flailing it with a broom as well as an opossum, stray dog or any other critter that trespassed. She stood her ground with the bullish of bulls, marauding ganders or roosters and sent an old drunk fleeing one night when Father was away. Yet for all the bravado in that mite of a woman she feared snakes with a passion.
My first inclination of her fear of snakes, any snake for that matter from the largest King to the smallest garden variety came about one day while cleaning the upstairs rooms. I had been drafted to help with the cleaning and did not appreciate the chore. Mother and I began in a curtained off area where lay accumulated boxes of a scrape cloth to be used in quilting, several empty Mason jars and other items to numerous to mention. Wanting only to finish the job I obediently followed her instructions removing the boxes and bundles out for her to examine.
One particular box caught my attention, laden with an assortment of belts. A black patent leather belt lay tightly coiled on top and especially interested me. I envisioned it as a hat band. Picking it up and turning toward mother the belt inadvertently uncoiled, snapping quite loudly when it reached the end of its length. Mother screamed, stumbled and fell over a box in a dead faint. The incident if nothing else removed all doubts I may have had about her fear of snakes.
A month or two later on a warm spring morning Mother announced that it was wash day and said to me the dreaded words. “Ronnie it’s your turn to help me. Before you draw water for the kettles get out of those overalls. You’ll find clean ones on a chair in the kitchen.”
“But Mother not out here someone might see me naked!” I protested.
“Do as you’re told young man,” she replied sternly. “You won’t be naked and beside ain’t nobody gonna see you.”
I knew better than to argue and shed the overalls, tossing them on a heap of other clothing. I ran up the steps into the kitchen, pulled the clean overalls on and was about to snap a gallous in place when I remembered I had left an aspirin tin in a pocket of the overalls lying outside and it contained a very small garter snake. I dashed out the door to the landing, but that was as far as I got.
Mother stood with the aspirin tin in her hand and in the process of opening it. I shrank back against the banister, too late to retrieve the little box. It was perhaps a couple of seconds later when the lid burst open and Mother screamed, again and again tossing the box containing the snake high into the air.
Strangely all I could think of was to try and retrieve the little snake and ran down the steps trying to keep up with the box now tumbling end over end. I had previously rescued the snake in the chicken yard as it was about to be gobbled up by a hen. Mother’s screams distracted me and the tin fell near the back fence and the snake fled into a clump of iris.
Upon hearing the frantic screams, Father raced around a corner of the house to find Mother down on a pile of dirty clothes recovering from a faint.
“Herschel, take Ronnie to the field with you!” She exclaimed. “Donnie can help me with the wash.”
I wasted no time running around to the front of the house and sat down on the steps to await my fate. Father arrived shortly and sat down beside me, but not before he gently whacked me on the head.
“Son, you’re lucky,” he said. “If she’d been standing you would have got a whupping for sure.” Adios