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STATE Maseadhusetts
NAME OF WORKER Robert Wilder
ADDRESS Northfield, Massachusetts
DATE June 5, 1939
SUBJECT Living Lore
NAME OF INFORMANT G. O. Dunnell
ADDRESS Northfield, Massaausetts
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper 8
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. O. Dunnells Hay, Grain
and Feed Man
Mr. Dunnell, hatless, with a collarless white shirt) somewhat
crumpled, trousers that looked as if their wearer might have been at
a crap game) supported by very visible suspenders, hair well slicked
down, but skin an unnatural white, was out for a walk to enjoy a butt
of the cigar a salesman had given him, in the cool of the evening.
"Thought I'd drop in on yer. Ant before I forget it, let me ask
yer how many feet they is in a link. A surveyor's link I mean. Only
about eight inches? Sho, I thought they was more than that. I'm
measuring the front of my lot. It tells in the deed how many links
they is. Maybe I need chains, too? No, I don't think so. The deed
don't say nothin' about chains. It jest says links. I'm measuring
the front of my lot 'cause I want to be sure that I don't own that
tree that got thrown down by the hurricane. I don't think I do. But
my son Leon says I do. And I'm goin' to find out.
"Yer see, when they set that tree up, they drove that steam shovel
of theirs right across my lawn and left a couple ruts there about a foot
deep. Now, it's one thing if I own the tree-- though I didn't ask 'ea
to do it, nor they didn't ask me, nor any of us, if welanted it done.
And it's quite another thing if that tree belongs on Abbott's land.
Jest why did they drive across my lawn to fix his tree? Why didn't
they drive across his lawn. And put the ruts in that? Oh well, I don't
really care, but we got to talking about it so I thought I'd find out
whose tree it was.
"I don't care, because the state filled in the ruts. And they're
going to plant grass seed, if they get around to it before winter sets in.
-2
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper 8
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. Dunnell, Hay,Grain
and Feed Man
Here 'tis the emd of May and they ain't got around to it yet. I got
quite a crop of things growing in those ruts now, waiting for the state
fellers to come around. I didn't plant none of it. But it grew just
the same. I got grass. But it's that yeller grass that grows in corn-
fields. And I got pig weed and dandy lion, and lots of little elms and
maples about four inches high. I'll have to mow the mess if they don't
hurry up.
"I don't think I'll have to mow my garden this year. I got a
pretty good start. My -peas are up, and so are my -potatoes. I'm the
only one that raises peas around here, am I? Well, I found out sunthin'.
I used to use a lot of fertlizer jest as these other fellers do
before I planted. And the vines would come up two three inches high,
turn yeller and die. I figgered I was burnin, up the roots. So now I
wait 'til the plants is two three inches high, then I put fertilizer
around them careful. Yer mustn't git none of it on the plants, you know.
Keep it a couple of inches away. I do that, then I put in the brush for
'em togrow up on. And I get a good crop. 'Tain't nothing I read any-
where, nor what anybody told me. I just found it out for myself. Beats
all what you can do if you use your head once in a while.
"You say snakes are good in a garden? I've heard that. But my
wife wouldn't go anywhere near the garden if she knew they was a snake
there. And if they's a snake anywheres around, she'll see it. And I
ain't one to keep her from pullin' weeds, damn them.
"I ain't afraid of snakes. They can't hurt you none 'cept,
maybe, the rattler. They are a lot more anxious to get out of your way
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper 8
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. DunnelI, Hay, Grain
and Feed Man
than you are toget out of theirs. And, unless you got 'em cornered,
somehow, they won't even strike at yer.
"You know, they's a lot of people that won't go on that hill back
of the cemetery. Afraid to. Afraid of the snakes. When the first
warm days of spring come, don't no one want to go near that cemetery
if they are afraid of snakes. They are mostly the striped kind, but
they crawl out of their holes and sun ,emselves on the tombstones
stretch 'emselves out on the rocks the stones are'set in. They say
they killed over sixty there getting ready for Memorial Day.
"George Slate seen one there that warn't no striped one. He
didn't stop to find out what color it was, or what pattern it had on
it. I don't know where a critter like he seen could a come from
less it was from a circus. And George is a truthful man.
"George was digging a grave. Guess it was for that woman that
used to work here one time. She went down to Boston, and got to be the
boss in a big store. Then she come here without telling nobody
walked from the East Northfield station and jumped off the Schell bridge.
Some kids that was fishing found her caught on a snag sometime after-
wards. And that was the way the authorities doped it out. She didn't
have no relatives, nor nothing. But she had enough money to bury her.
And the State got the rest.
"George's back got kind of tired, and he leaned back against the
edge of the grave to rest himself. And he thought he seen something
moving at a hole in a stonewall, low down. He was on the side of the
cemetery where the snakes come from. But he didn't think nothin' of it.
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper a
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. Dunnelli Hay,
Grain and Feed Man
Just sort of wondered at it was. It took it about as long to pass
that hole as it does for a C. V. freight to go by. But when the hole
showed daylight again) George looked around to see where the engine
was that was pulling the train. He saw it all right. George) down in
the grave) with nothing much but his head sticking out, must a looked
like a kind of rabbit to the snake for that's what it was. And it
was headed right for him. George said the snake was as big around as
an eight inch tile. But he didn't atop to measure. No sir) fat as he
is) he just floated up out of that grave) over the tombstones and over
the fence. And) puffing and blowint he run clear to center of town.
He wouldn't even go back after his shovel. He see somethin' all right.
But I don't know about it being as big around as an eight inch tile.
They's some big snakes around there, though.
"I was mowing down in the medder back of there. You see there's
the cemetery. Then they's this side hill where the snakes are, that's
over the wall from the cemetery and slopes down to a swamp. And an
the other side of the swamp was this madder where I was mowing. I felt
a little jar on the machine) and when I looked around I see samethin'
floppint. I stopped the horses, and looked. I see I had cut a snake
intro with the mowing machine that was as big around as my arm well
mebbe not quite that big big as my upper wrist) say. I had a stick
in my hand for poking the grass off the mowing machine arm, so I went
back to put the snake out of his mistry. But the part with the head an
it wriggled away. I tried to catch it, but couldn't. *Cause it run
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper 8
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. Dunnellt Hay,
Grain and Feed Man
down a rabbit burrer and got away, leaving the tail part of him still
floppin'. Judging by the tail, I should say that the snake was six
feet long or mebbe seven might a -been eight and it was a kind of
dull black color.
"Ever hear that a snake's skin was good for a headache? Next time
you find a skin that a snake has sloughed off, and you have a headache,
take it and wrap it around your forehead. I understand that's what they
do in Europe when they have a headache. I guess now they must be short
of snake skins; so many people in so many different countries have
headaches. Maybe we could get up a reciprocal trade agreement and
export snakeskin* to 'em. I don't really believe that. I believe them
Europeans will have to skin a few two -legged snakes they have walking
around loose, before they really get rid of their headaches.
"No. I won't be seeing the King, so I can't give the idea of all
English men wearing snake skins to him. My ancestors took too much
trouble getting rid of his ancestors for ms to want to meet him. Mebbe
he just wants to be friendly. And maybe he's trying to pull our legs
again. He might have saved the money the trip cost, and what the
Canadian people put up, and all the rest of it, and have made a payment
on the war debts. They aught ter have kept Eddie on the throne and let
his wife be queen. If they'd a -done that, they'd a -been some excuse for
the king to COM over. For there would -a been an American queen. Who's
this queen anyway? She was born in Glamis castle. She's Lady Macbeth
that's who she is. Bet yer she had a hand in getting Eddie framed up.
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper 8
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. Dunnell, Hay.
Grain and Feed man
Why should we cheer for her, stinging an American queen out of a job?
Them damned English got a nerve. They wrote President Roosevelt and
told him what to do in order to receive the king properly. Strikes
me that the king is the one that's got to figure an the getting along.
Not be telling the President what to do.
"You know that story about the 'getting along?' Well, it was in
some war we had. A young feller gust out of West Point got sent to a
regiment that had a hard boiled colonel. The young feller was told it.
But he was a diplomat, he was. Instead of keeping out of the colonel's
way and doing what he was told, he goes right up and braces him.
'Colonel', he says, 'Lieut. So and so reports to you., 'Very good,'
says the Colonel, 'report to Captain Blank R. Company.' 'Yes, sir,'
says the shave tail, 'I've heard of you Colonel, and I'm sure we'll
get along all right., 'Get along, get along?' says the Colonel, 'you
bet we'll get along. But in my outfit, young man, you'll, do the getting
along I'
"Say where was I? I was talking about snakes, and I seem to have
got 'em mixed up with colonels.
"Lukas Schryba the Polack was telling the other day, 'All you folks
is crazy in this country. You kill all da snake. Then you tax da people
to get money to pay odder people to catch da boog.' He said that if we'd
do like they do in the old country and fine people for killing snakes
that the snakes would eat the bugs, and we wotildn't have to have so
high taxes.
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper S
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. Dunne112 Hay,
Grain and Feed man
"You don't have to believe this story, otcourse. But I'm telling
it to yer just as I heard it. I don't know nothint about snakes
tcept that I don't like tem. But this Rattlesnake Pete that used to
hunt rattlers around here told it to me. He ain't around here no more.
He's gone West, where they's bigger rattlesnakes, I expect. But they
got 'em 'round here that's big enough for me. Timberrattlesnakes they
call tem. And, instead of having a -black head, like most timber rattle-
snakes do, the ones around here has yeller heads. They got one that was
five feet two inches long. Got him alive, too. And took it off to a
zoo somewheres.
"The snakes that Rattlesnake Pete caught didn't get to no zoo.
They got bought up by medicine men. You know, the kind that used to
rig a gasolene flare up an a buggy. Play the banjo, maybe, to get the
folks around some evenive. Tell 'am stories and sing. And then sell
tam rattlesnake oil for their rheumatiz. Maybe, some of 'em did sell
real rattlesnake oil in them days. But I understand that the medicine
business has advanced along with everything else. The medicine men
travel in trailers now. And the oil they sell is this up to date motor
oil that they advertise over the radio. 'Cept that the motor oil that
is used for rattlesnake oil has bemused a bit for automobile engines.
But that don't hurt its medical properties none. I don't stpose that
they could get away with it unless they had a few live rattlers around
for the folks to see so's to convince 'en it was the genuwine article.
"Pete claimed he caught the rattlers with his bare hands. I don't
know whether he did or not. I understand that the scientific fellers
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper 8
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. Dunnelli Here
Grain and Feed Mao
who study last or somethint, have astick with a hole bored through
it at one end. And through this hole they push a loop of string. The
rattlers ain't lively, you know. They don't go nowberes and don't
irother nobody that don't bother them. So the scientific fellers can
sneak up on a snake and put the loop of string over the snake's head.
Then they pull on the ends of the string that they have in their hands.
And the loop pulls the snake's head right up against the hole in the
stick. They can put the snake in a box, or a bag then, and slack off
on the string and get their stick out again ready for the next snake.
"They tell me that snakes have good eyesight near to. But that
they can't hear a dumb thing. They feel a jar on the ground, though.
And you have to step mighty light so's they won't feel you. But you
can talk all you want. You won't scare the snakes none by talking.
"I asked one of the scientific fellers if he ever heard of a man
catching a rattler with his bare hands. He laughed and said it had
been done. And told me about a hobo who was lying on.the ground up
near Brattleboro sleeping off a jag. He felt somethin' crawling around
him, woke up and saw a snake. He thought 't wan't nothin' but the
effects of the licker he'd drunk, so be grabbed it and stuffed it in his
pocket. The darned thing squirmed so that be couldn't sleep, so he got
up, looked at it and see it was a real snake. He'd never seen none
like it before. It was kinder dried up onthe tail and whizzed it
around so's it made a funny sound. He thought maybe be had a curiousity.
So he stuffed it in a can and took it over to Bushnell's store where he
-9
Name Robert Wilder
Title The Study of Living Lore
Paper 8
Assignment Northfield
Topic G. 0. Dunne'', Hay.
Grain and Feed Man
swapped it off for more licker. Bushnell kept it awhile as an ex-
hibit. Then he pickled it in alcohol and sold it to some college.
Jason Bushnell was the name. No, I didn't know they called hi* that
'cause he fleeced people. Maybe the scientific feller was funning
me. But what he said sounded all right to me. He said anybody could
handle a rattler with his bare hands if the anake had just had a
good, square meal. That when a rattler eats he empties his poison sacs
and that it takes about three days to fill 'am up again. He said lots
of people had been bitten by rattlers and hadn't been bothered much
only scared. But the reason was that the snake had had a good meal
within three days, so's he couldn't squirt as much poison into 'am as
he could if he'd been real hungry. But speaking about gettin' bit
'minds me of that story I was going to tell you about Rattlesnake Pete,
that you don't have to believe unless you want to.
"Pete ketched all his rattlers with his bare hands. But one day he
warn't quite quick enough, or sunthin', and a snake give him a good bite
right in the ann. Pete was scared. He just knowed he was going to die.
He run screamin, for the doctor, taking the snake right along with him,
'cause he didn't want to lose his dollar bounty even if he was goin' to
die or baybe he thought he could pay the doctor with it. Anyway,
that's the last the town seen of Rattlesnake Pete. The bite turned out
to be fatal. Sure I did I told you that Pete went West. No, the bite
didn't hurt him enough to say so. Just scared him. Sure the bite was
fatal. No, Pete didn't die. But the snake did that bit him. A bite of
Pete was fatal to the snake.
"Good night. Guess after that one I'll be on my way home. Don't came
to the door I don't never treat you that way."