Unbearable

It was late in the evening, and we were sitting around in the firelight, drinking a last cup of tea before bed. Maw looked up from her sewing and said to Jeb, “I want you to go looking for blackberries in the morning. There should be enough ripe ones by now to make a nice pie.” Jeb pulled a face. I knew he didn’t like blackberrying, as the brambles were taller than he was, and he got scratched all over each time he was in the blackberry patch. He didn’t object to eating the pies though.

“I’d like a blueberry pie better, Maw,” he said, hopefully.

“I’ll do it,” I volunteered. “ I can dodge the brambles easier than Jeb can.”

Just then, an unexpected offer came from across the room.

“Let me do that,” said Miss Taylor. “It will keep me away from the animals for a while. I’ll take a bucket into the blackberry patch while Jake collects the eggs. I don’t think your rooster likes me,” she added.

“T’ain’t nothing personal, That pesky bird don’t like no-one that hasn’t got any food for it. One day he’ll make a great chicken stew.”

“But Paw,” wailed Jeb. “He’s my rooster, and he loves me. He’s won prizes at the show for us.”

“Cain’t eat no ribbons or rosettes,” Paw grumbled.

“We can’t eat Randy.”

“While I’m running this farm, we’ll eat whatever I can get your Maw to cook for us. Now come on, it’s late, time for bed.”

I looked across at Jeb, and he gave me the tiniest of nods. That told me that he’d done his part of my plan to make Miss Taylor beholden to me. He’d found a garter snake and hidden it in my teacher’s bed earlier that evening. It was harmless, but Miss Taylor wouldn’t know that.

I offered to take Mindy Lou upstairs for Maw, so I could be on hand when Miss Taylor screamed. Jake to the rescue.

Jeb headed out for the barn, and Paw held back politely to let Miss Taylor and Maw go upstairs first. I was still settling Mindy Lou in her crib, when I heard Miss Taylor’s door re-open, then she knocked, and poked her head around my parents’ open bedroom door.

“Hey, Mr Barton, look what I found on my bedroom floor. The cutest little garter snake I ever saw. He must have come in for the shade.” I couldn’t believe the soppy look on her face as she looked down at the reptile dangling from her hands. “He’s even smaller than the one I had as a little girl.”

“You had a snake?”

“Yes, Jake. I wasn’t always a teacher, you know. I had kittens and a puppy, and then one year my Daddy brought me a pet garter snake. He said I was too squeamish around animals and needed to get used to different kinds. Well, I’m not sure that worked except with garter snakes. My, he’s cute. Is he yours or Jeb’s?”

“No Ma’am. You can keep him if Jeb doesn’t want him ba… I mean, I’m sure Jeb wouldn’t want him. Er…he’s yours Ma’am. If you want him of course.”

“Thank you Jake, but no. Why not give him to Jeb. I understand he’s good with animals.”

I didn’t give the snake to Jeb. I threw it at him. “Well, that didn’t work,” I raged. “We’re going to have to get something else to scare her with.”

“We could trap a wolf and knock it out then put it in her room while it’s unconscious.”

“And how in the name of Sam Hill am I supposed to rescue her from a wolf? ‘Sides, I’m scared of them myself. Anyway, it’s too late now. She’s going home tomorrow.”

Jeb took the snake outside and turned it loose in the yard, well away from the henhouse and returned to the barn, where we snuggled into the hay and plotted harm against Miss Taylor until we fell asleep.

Next morning after a hearty breakfast of buttermilk hotcakes made by Miss Taylor – “My speciality”, I started on the Sunday chores. I was opening the door to the henhouse, bucket of feed in hand, when I heard Paw asking, “That teacher of yours hasn’t gone down to the blackberry patch yet, has she?”

“Yes, about five minutes ago. Why, what’s wrong?” I asked as I saw the alarm in Paw’s face.

“I just saw a bear and her two cubs going in there. Quick, get the guns, and hurry!”

We raced to the barn where we kept the guns, and grabbed the shotgun and Paw’s sidearm that he had sort of accidentally lost in the war, and been reported to Paw’s Sergeant as having been stolen by one of the redneck Larrabee clan. It had cost Paw a week confined to barracks, but he didn’t complain. Making sure they were both loaded, we ran hell for leather to the blackberry patch, yelling for Miss Taylor to get down and stay down.

It was rare, though not unknown, for bears to come so close to human habitation, but the scent of the early blackberries on the breeze had obviously reached the keen nostrils of the momma bear. Once she got that scent, there was no stopping her, and she and her cubs were out for a feast, and nobody, schoolma’am or not, was going to stop them.

We hit that patch at about one hundred miles an hour, and weren’t but a few yards in when I spotted my teacher, standing rooted to the spot, while a large black bear stood in front of her, menacing in the sunlight.

“Get down,” Paw screamed, but she was too frozen in terror to do as she was told. I could hear a rumbling sound coming from the bear, and she wasn’t saying “Come and help me pick some berries for the kids,”.

Her mouth opened in a teacher shattering roar, as her front paws rose in attack mode. Five things happened at the same time then. Paw and I fired at the bear, Miss Taylor fell to the ground in a dead faint, the bear dropped heavily, and I landed on my ass from the recoil of the shotgun. In my panic I’d fired both barrels, but for once Paw didn’t yell at me for wasting ammunition.