The Black Snake & My Tongue

On Life's Way

I remember so well living in the little town of Morgan, Kentucky. My family lived in a two-room house with a very small back porch just behind the Morgan school buildings and just beside the school playground.

Being about five years old, I remember that we had many snakes around the house. Our little house sat just up the hill from the Licking River, and we had many visits from especially black snakes. We had a few Banty hens, and they would lay eggs under our house. The snakes loved to steal the eggs.

One day in warm weather, we children we outside playing, and a black snake came into the yard. I watched him for a moment, then finally got scared. I then went as fast as I could into the house. The front window of the house was open, so I went to the window to keep an eye of that snake. To my surprise, the snake came toward the window, raised up a little off the ground, and looked me right in the eye.

That scared me at first, but then I became very brave, knowing that, being inside the house, the snake could not do any harm to me. I looked the snake right back in his eye and noticed that his tongue kept going in and out of his mouth. In response, I simply stuck my tongue out at him. It did not seem to intimidate him much, so he went on his way, and so did I.

Did you ever stick out your tongue at a snake? Betcha didn't.