Sometime in 1995....
Once again in a telephone conversation with my brother,
we were going over the days of our childhood in a small
town close to the Banks of The Mighty Mississippi and he
brought up the time I was bitten by a snake.  Yes, the old
dreaded " I've been snakebit all my life" routine.  Of course
I remember!  Not a
fleeting memory, this snakebite.  However I learned something
I had never known before...

Many years ago...don't ask!

     It was summertime at last!  I had just spent the longest
year of my life, having completed the first grade in the big city,
 where we now lived,  Lordy, why
I cried and tried to follow Bubba to school, before I got "old
enough" to attend totally escaped me.  And yes, I did follow him
to school one day. I was so lonely when he started to school and
I couldn't go, I use to hate to see daybreak, because I knew Bubba
would soon be on his way thru the woods to Wellford school along
with every other child in the world..except me.  I watched him go
every morning and as I recall it was so hard for me.
I had learned at
 a very early age that some people left, and came back,
and others left,
 and didn't. With Mother having
moved to the city in search of work, and My Daddy, well I'm not sure
if he was still in the Army or just gone, Bubba and I were left with my
Grandparents until Mother could come back for us.
And with Mother gone,
I felt Bubba was the only other part of me there was.

But I was happy there, I had a bed shared with a cousin,
clothes, plenty food, a horse called Beauty,
 my own place on the bench at the table by Grandpa,
cousins to play with, Mother some of the time, and Bubba all the time.
But the seperation I experienced when Bubba left for school
had to be remedied..
So I set out to follow him to school.  And I did.  I really don't remember
 the trip thru the woods, I just remember being there.  And I remember feeling
as though Bubba didn't want me there.
 I'm sure he was nervous and embarrassed
because he spilled a drink all over my dress.
They were having some sort of
 little party there at that school and I guess
I figured I needed to be a part of it.
 I really dont think the teachers minded me being there, nearly
as much as Bubba did, because  they gave me goodies, and it was
 "picture taking" day at school and they took my picture too!!  I still have it.

BUT BACK TO THE SERPENT.....  School was out for the summer
and we were off to
spend the summer with our grandparents in the country.
We missed the place
we had called home for so long, and were anxious
to share our city ways
 experiences with our cousins.
"...There's the barn, the yard, the tree.
    You climbed so many times with me."
Bubba had a sleek horse named Dick and I had a gray mare, which I named
Beauty, of course.  This horse, Dick, had a personality all his own, and
 not many penetrated it.  But Bubba loved him, and he could yell
 "Trail, Dick, Trail", and that horse would take off like greased lightning!
Well Beauty was not of a nature to go flying down the lane, but if we
were riding together, when Bubba called his command to Dick, she took off
 flying too!  And I dont think she really knew how to do that.  This horse
was so slow, if she got any slower, we would be just standing!  Up and down
 the lane we rode and rode and rode.  Bubba and Dick chasing the wind,
and Beauty and me..well it was "hang on sloopy!"
At some point one day, we decided to go to the plum tree for a snack.  We
ran thru the weeds of where the previous year's garden had been planted,
 and had our fill.  Afterwards Bubba jumped up and over the back fence,
either as a shortcut or maybe just to avoid going back thru the weeds.  But
 I couldn't get over the fence, so my only recourse was back thru the weeds.
       THOSE DESIGNATED "FLOWERS NOT YET BLOOMING."
About halfway I stepped in a hole and fell forward.  I thought I had heard
 a "rustle" in the weeds before I fell, and when I began to get up,
I KNEW I HAD.
When I raised one of my hands, a snake came with it. His crocodile sized
jaws still clamped to my hand.  I remember seeing it drop off
 and hearing that same "rustle" in the weeds.  And looking across the rest
 of the way I had to go, I remember seeing Bubba jumping up and down like
on an invisible pogo stick yelling. "snake! snake!"
There are only bits and pieces in my memory of what happened next.  I don't
 know how I got out of the garden and onto the back porch, but I remember
one of Granpa's field hands sucking the bite spot on my hand and spitting
it out.  They were talking about packing my hand in ice, where could they
get some, and how long would it take?
The Ritchie's who lived "across Tiger", were the closest ones who would
have ice, but someone had to saddle up a horse and go get it.
Until sometime in 1995, during the conversation with my brother,
I never knew who got the ice.
 It was my brother, Bubba.
His horse, as mentioned above, "Ol weird Dick" had a little game he
     played, if you wanted to ride him.  And oh he played it so well.
You had to catch him!
And there was no getting around it, you had to play the game.
Bubba had been having pretty good luck getting him to come to him, by
 holding an ear of corn out to tempt him.
It worked some of the time,
 but not all of the time.  You still had to play the game!
Bubba said in our conversation,
"Dongail, I was so scared, I remember
following that horse around with my ear of corn in my hand and
crying my heart out."  He said,
" I kept thinking, Please, please let this be one day he won't be hard to
 catch."
    Well weird old Dick must have cooperated,
 because I was laying on the porch thinking
of our dog, "Old White", and next thing I knew they were packing
my hand in ice.  But I didn't know at the time it was
Bubba who had ridden so hard and so fast to get it.
I was thinking of "Old White's" encounters with snakes, and how he would
 hold them in his teeth slinging them from side to side, trying to kill
 them.  Sometimes he would get bitten, and his head would swell up 3 times
 it's normal size, and he would crawl up under the house to wait out his
fate.
I remember thinking, "Will my head swell like that?"
Well not my head, but
 my hand, did swell until it didn't look like a hand anymore.
 Grandpa took
me into town, and Dr, Anderson, a sort of pinkish looking man,
with a gold tooth,
 gave me a shot and determined I would live.

     The last part of this tale is something only a privileged few know
about...EDEN REVISITED.
Earlier in that same day, before I was bitten,
all us smaller kids had been
 in our playhouse, which was the barn when it was full of hay.
What raises
 it's ugly head but the old proverbial
"..you show me yours, I'll show you mine."
  I don't know if anybody looked at "mine" or not,
because as I remember we all
"dropped" at the same time.
My brother and I were still sleeping and bathing
 together at home so there was no mystery there.
That's just what made him a boy and me a girl!
 Perhaps I thought somebody else might have a different
 distinguishing feature to tell them apart.  I don't know.
No one had told us about the "facts of life."
But I guess those "facts" were still happening!
It was a discussion time dreaded by all Moms & Dads.
  It was whispered about as though it were bad,
 and kept secret as though it were sacred.
I can't help feeling they were
putting off the time when they would have to tell us,
just hoping we already knew.
 When that "put off" time finally came, we did!
     In my heart I knew that what we were doing was wrong.
At that time,
 my conscience was probably the cleanest thing I had.
 But I exposed my
7 year old anatomy for my cousins to see just as all the others did.
Well...
     Some of the older kids had been peeking thru the cracks and ran to
tell Grandma, a God fearing woman, who never let us forget that we had
 better be the same.
Our "porn" ring had been busted!
And by Grandma.
And I don't remember even  getting to see anybody else's "what-not"!
     Well Grandma didn't get me, but the snake did,
for later that same day I was bitten. That night in bed with
 my cousin, KeeKee, I remember crying.  I was so ashamed
and I felt God had
 punished me by sending the snake to bite me.  The scene was set..
There was
 a Garden, There was a Snake, A terrible sin, No apple but a plum instead.
 It was Genesis from the Bible all being played out in me!
I was ashamed and scared and I hoped God knew I had learned my lesson, but
 just in case he didn't I told him over and over, until I finally fell asleep.
Sleep that brought about a new day and a better feeling
about what had happened.
   Taking away the fear of eternal damnation in hell's fire.
.....and of having a head that looked like "Old White's...."

There was a tiny article in the local newspaper, about the incident.  To sum
it up it read;
CHILD BITTEN BY SNAKE
Gave basic details...then, "Donnis was in the garden at the Streetman home
 when she was bitten by the snake.  She received medical attention in
 Eudora.  She was spending the summer months visiting her Grandparents,
Mr. & Mrs. J. H. Streetman."
I still have the article in my scrapbook.
Thank you Lord for keeping the tabloids at bay!!!