The Boy of Battle Ford and the Man

CHAPTER II

THE BOY OF BATTLE FORD 17 moving rapidly from side to side as it advanced; the snake all the time keeping its eye on the eye of the object hypnotized, and by some mysterious influence gradually drew its prisoner into its mouth and then swallowed it. Snakes, like men, sometimes undertake too much, however. As Ruffin Travis came to our home one morning; he discovered a large rattlesnake by the roadside with a squirrel in its throat partially swallowed -both of them dead. Dr. F. F. Johnson, living near Stonefort, Illinois, related to me the following strange incident regarding the snake. Some years ago while in Texas, he and a friend were strolling over the prairie, when they came upon a large chicken-snake whose hindmost half was wrapped closely around its middle part, presenting a mysterious appearance indeed , which was unraveled only when the snake had been killed and examined. In stealing the eg,gs from some hen's nest it mistook a stone egg for a hen's egg and swallowed it. Of course the lady who put the egg there'to fool the hen with, thought some boy stole ,it, but the snake knew he had it and would be glad if he did not, have it. He tried to crush it with the tail end of himself by wrapping and squeezing . As he failed he continued till that part of the body grew rigid there, assuming an ugly and frightening appearance. By that one discovery, the manner in which th{l snake crushes its foo~ is learned. Andby the merciful killing by the Doctor and his friend the,snake, was relieved of a slow but certain death. CHAPTER II. DURING the flrst seven years of my , life, the date of the events of which . I am writing, I saw only one wagon except the clumsy truck wagon whose wheels were sawed from black gum logs. Sleds were used generaly in moving wbat could not be carried easily on the men's shoulders. The roads of that date were not capable of admitting the 1)assage of a wagon in most places. As to bridges, th,ere were none in that country. If OUl'" neighbors knew there were such inventionsas bridges in the world, I did not heal'" them speak of the fact. One day in March, 1846, Stephen Dun-' can asked my grandfather to accompany him to the creek, 300 yards away. I waS' permitted to ,go along and we witnessed him' swim the full river with his clothing tied on the top of his head. The ford extends from the east bank northwest to the west bank, nearly seventy-fiv(} 'yards, I think. His clothing did not escape the water entirely. We waited till he dressed and departed on his mission, before returning home. I do not know why the man did not make a raft or dugout, unless he iiked to swim in cold water. I stood on the same bank fifty years later, long after the others had gone to the world unseen by us and recalled the incident and remarked the striking similarity of the Battle Ford of 1846 and the Battle Pord of. 1896, as recognized by me. In a short time afterward there was a bridge at the ford and they soon became common. The residences of the people were of simple construction. Yet they answered their purpose well. A pen was built of logs sixteen or eighteen feet each way and seven or eight feet high. The sides of the logs were sometimes scalped off. The house was covered with boards four feet long and very wide, placed' on rib poles and held in place with weight poles, as there were no nails to be had. One door was cut in the side of the house and sometimes one was cut in each side of it. The shutter was made of thin, long, split boards shaved with a drawing knife aIld hung on wooden hinges. If there was any ceiling overhead it was of split boards or 18 THE BOY OF BATTLE FORD rough sawed plank. The floors were of thick split puncheons, six feet long, with spaces between them often an inch wide. The fire-place was a hole sawed out of the end of the pen, of large dimensions, and a wooden pen outside raised to the top of the house and a jamb of dirt or rock built inside of it as a casing between the...