One day when I rode over to the Shimerdas’ I found Antonia starting off on foot for Russian Peter’s house, to borrow a spade Ambrosch needed. I offered to take her on the pony2, and she got up behind me. There had been another black frost the night before, and the air was clear and heady as wine. Within a week all the blooming roads had been despoiled4, hundreds of miles of yellow sunflowers had been transformed into brown, rattling5, burry stalks.
We found Russian Peter digging his potatoes. We were glad to go in and get warm by his kitchen stove and to see his squashes and Christmas melons, heaped in the storeroom for winter. As we rode away with the spade, Antonia suggested that we stop at the prairie-dog-town and dig into one of the holes. We could find out whether they ran straight down, or were horizontal, like mole-holes; whether they had underground connections; whether the owls7 had nests down there, lined with feathers. We might get some puppies, or owl6 eggs, or snakeskins.
The dog-town was spread out over perhaps ten acres. The grass had been nibbled8 short and even, so this stretch was not shaggy and red like the surrounding country, but grey and velvety9. The holes were several yards apart, and were disposed with a good deal of regularity10, almost as if the town had been laid out in streets and avenues. One always felt that an orderly and very sociable11 kind of life was going on there. I picketed12 Dude down in a draw, and we went wandering about, looking for a hole that would be easy to dig. The dogs were out, as usual, dozens of them, sitting up on their hind3 legs over the doors of their houses. As we approached, they barked, shook their tails at us, and scurried13 underground. Before the mouths of the holes were little patches of sand and gravel14, scratched up, we supposed, from a long way below the surface. Here and there, in the town, we came on larger gravel patches, several yards away from any hole. If the dogs had scratched the sand up in excavating15, how had they carried it so far? It was on one of these gravel beds that I met my adventure.
We were examining a big hole with two entrances. The burrow16 sloped into the ground at a gentle angle, so that we could see where the two corridors united, and the floor was dusty from use, like a little highway over which much travel went. I was walking backward, in a crouching17 position, when I heard Antonia scream. She was standing18 opposite me, pointing behind me and shouting something in Bohemian. I whirled round, and there, on one of those dry gravel beds, was the biggest snake I had ever seen. He was sunning himself, after the cold night, and he must have been asleep when Antonia screamed. When I turned, he was lying in long loose waves, like a letter ‘W.’ He twitched19 and began to coil slowly. He was not merely a big snake, I thought—he was a circus monstrosity. His abominable20 muscularity, his loathsome21, fluid motion, somehow made me sick. He was as thick as my leg, and looked as if millstones couldn’t crush the disgusting vitality22 out of him. He lifted his hideous23 little head, and rattled24. I didn’t run because I didn’t think of it—if my back had been against a stone wall I couldn’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 wavy25 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 winding26, doubling and falling back on itself. I walked away and turned my back. I felt seasick27.
Antonia came after me, crying, ‘O Jimmy, he not bite you? You sure? Why you not run when I say?’
‘What did you jabber28 Bohunk for? You might have told me there was a snake behind me!’ I said petulantly29.
‘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 kawntree 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 belly30 in the light. A faint, fetid smell came from him, and a thread of green liquid oozed31 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 noose32 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 rattles33, but they were broken off before they began to taper34, so I insisted that he must once have had twenty-four. I explained to Antonia how this meant that he was twenty-four years old, that he must have been there when white men first came, left on from buffalo35 and Indian times. As I turned him over, I began to feel proud of him, to have a kind of respect for his age and size. He seemed like the ancient, eldest36 Evil. Certainly his kind have left horrible unconscious memories in all warm-blooded life. When we dragged him down into the draw, Dude sprang off to the end of his tether and shivered all over—wouldn’t let us come near him.
We decided37 that Antonia should ride Dude home, and I would walk. As she rode along slowly, her bare legs swinging against the pony’s sides, she kept shouting back to me about how astonished everybody would be. I followed with the spade over my shoulder, dragging my snake. Her exultation38 was contagious39. The great land had never looked to me so big and free. If the red grass were full of rattlers, I was equal to them all. Nevertheless, I stole furtive40 glances behind me now and then to see that no avenging41 mate, older and bigger than my quarry42, was racing43 up from the rear.
The sun had set when we reached our garden and went down the draw toward the house. Otto Fuchs was the first one we met. He was sitting on the edge of the cattle-pond, having a quiet pipe before supper. Antonia called him to come quick and look. He did not say anything for a minute, but scratched his head and turned the snake over with his boot.
‘Where did you run onto that beauty, Jim?’
‘Up at the dog-town,’ I answered laconically44.
‘Kill him yourself? How come you to have a weepon?’
‘We’d been up to Russian Peter’s, to borrow a spade for Ambrosch.’
Otto shook the ashes out of his pipe and squatted45 down to count the rattles. ‘It was just luck you had a tool,’ he said cautiously. ‘Gosh! I wouldn’t want to do any business with that fellow myself, unless I had a fence-post along. Your grandmother’s snake-cane wouldn’t more than tickle46 him. He could stand right up and talk to you, he could. Did he fight hard?’
Antonia broke in: ‘He fight something awful! He is all over Jimmy’s boots. I scream for him to run, but he just hit and hit that snake like he was crazy.’
Otto winked47 at me. After Antonia rode on he said: ‘Got him in the head first crack, didn’t you? That was just as well.’
We hung him up to the windmill, and when I went down to the kitchen, I found Antonia standing in the middle of the floor, telling the story with a great deal of colour.
Subsequent experiences with rattlesnakes taught me that my first encounter was fortunate in circumstance. My big rattler was old, and had led too easy a life; there was not much fight in him. He had probably lived there for years, with a fat prairie-dog for breakfast whenever he felt like it, a sheltered home, even an owl-feather bed, perhaps, and he had forgot that the world doesn’t owe rattlers a living. A snake of his size, in fighting trim, would be more than any boy could handle. So in reality it was a mock adventure; the game was fixed48 for me by chance, as it probably was for many a dragon-slayer. I had been adequately armed by Russian Peter; the snake was old and lazy; and I had Antonia beside me, to appreciate and admire.
That snake hung on our corral fence for several days; some of the neighbours came to see it and agreed that it was the biggest rattler ever killed in those parts. This was enough for Antonia. She liked me better from that time on, and she never took a supercilious49 air with me again. I had killed a big snake—I was now a big fellow.
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1
defer
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| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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despoiled
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| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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picketed
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| 用尖桩围住（picket的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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excavating
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| v.挖掘( excavate的现在分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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seasick
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| adj.晕船的 | |
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jabber
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| v.快而不清楚地说；n.吱吱喳喳 | |
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petulantly
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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oozed
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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32
noose
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| n.绳套，绞索（刑）；v.用套索捉；使落入圈套；处以绞刑 | |
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33
rattles
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| （使）发出格格的响声， （使）作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 )； 喋喋不休地说话； 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动，堕下或走动； 使紧张，使恐惧 | |
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taper
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| n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小 | |
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buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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39
contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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40
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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41
avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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42
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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43
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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44
laconically
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| adv.简短地，简洁地 | |
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45
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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46
tickle
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| v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒 | |
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47
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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48
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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49
supercilious
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| adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲 | |
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