d he was lying in long loose waves, like a
letter "W." He twitched and began to coil slowly. He was not merely a big
snake, I thought--he was a circus monstrosity. His abominable muscularity,
his loathsome, fluid motion, somehow made me sick. He was as thick as my
leg, and looked as if millstones could n't crush the disgusting vitality
out of him. He lifted his hideous little head, and rattled. I did n't run
because I did n't think of it--if my back had been against a stone wall I
could n't have felt more cornered. I saw his coils tighten--now he would
spring, spring his length, I remembered. I ran up and drove at his head
with my spade, struck him fairly across the neck, and in a minute he was
all about my feet in wavy loops. I struck now from hate. Antonia,
barefooted as she was, ran up behind me. Even after I had pounded his ugly
head flat, his body kept on coiling and winding, doubling and falling back
on itself. I walked away and turned my back. I felt seasick. Antonia came
after me, crying, "O Jimmy, he not bite you? You sure? Why you not run
when I say?"

"What did you jabber Bohunk for? You might have told me there was a snake
behind me!" I said petulantly.

"I know I am just awful, Jim, I was so scared." She took my handkerchief
from my pocket and tried to wipe my face with it, but I snatched it away
from her. I suppose I looked as sick as I felt.

"I never know you was so brave, Jim," she went on comfortingly. "You is
just like big mans; you wait for him lift his head and then you go for
him. Ain't you feel scared a bit? Now we take that snake home and show
everybody. Nobody ain't seen in this kawn-tree so big snake like you
kill."

She went on in this strain until I began to think that I had longed for
this opportunity, and had hailed it with joy. Cautiously we went back to
the snake; he was still groping with his tail, turning up his ugly belly
in the light. A faint, fetid smell came from him, and a thread of green
liquid oozed from his crushed head.

"Look, Tony, that's his poison," I said.

I took a long piece of string from my pocket, and she lifted his head with
the spade while I tied a noose around it. We pulled him out straight and
measured him by my riding-quirt; he was about five and a half feet long.
He had twelve rattles, but they were broken off before they began to
taper, so I insisted that he must once have had twenty-four. I explained
to Antonia how this meant that he was twenty-four year