Naturally, they didn't dare tell why she was sick. And she was sure she would feel better in a little while.
Another little story came to me from Susie, my older sister. She was always having to see after the baby of the family. At this time Albert was the baby and I was about three years old. She probably had to take care of me also, when I was a baby. But on this particular day—the day of the snuff—Mama, Grandma, and I went out to the garden. Susie wanted to go but had to stay in the house with Albert.
This was one of the few times during my childhood that I was just the right size, and here I am, unable to remember a thing about it. Susie had to tell me about it. If I had been any smaller, I might have had to stay in the house with Susie and Albert. And if I had been any larger, I might have had to watch after Albert while Susie went to the garden.
Anyway, Susie's brain was partly angry but mostly just idle, so the devil used it for his workshop.
Grandma had put her snuffbox on the door casing above the kitchen door. Susie had never been allowed to taste snuff, but she reasoned that it must be something special, because Grandma "dipped" it all the time.
Many's the time Grandma would send me to the "branch" (creek) to bring her a small hackberry limb for a tooth brush. (It was really a snuff brush.) She would take a hackberry twig about twice as big and twice as long as a wooden match and chew on one end until it "frazzled" out into a bristle. Then she would dip the damp bristle into her snuff, put it in her mouth, and work happily for hours, with the "brush" extending out one corner of her mouth.
Now, this picture of contentment on Grandma's face as she dipped and worked, is what the devil showed to Susie when he told her she ought to climb up on the kitchen cabinet and get her some of that delicious brown snuff in the little tin box.
She climbed up in a chair and got up on the cabinet, only to find that she couldn't reach the snuff. But she didn't give up. She climbed back down and put a chair up on the cabinet. Then she climbed up in the bottom chair to get onto the cabinet so she could get up in the top chair. And by leaning way over, she could reach the snuffbox.
Now, Susie didn't want to climb down to dip her snuff. It would be too hard to have to climb all the way back up to put the snuff back on the shelf over the door. So she just sat down in the upper chair and began dipping the snuff.
That's about all the story. At least that's all she remembered. She never did know how she got down from the chairs and the cabinet. She only remembers that, when she began to regain consciousness, she was a mighty sick little girl, and snuff had lost its charm and glitter.