An old garden is like an old life. Who plants from youth to age writes a record of the years in leaf and blossom, and the spot becomes as sacred as old wine, old books, and old friends. Here in the garden of Aunt Jane's planting I found that flowers were also memories; that reminiscences were folded in the petals of roses and lilies; that a rose's perfume might be a voice from a vanished summer; and even the snake gliding across our path might prove a messenger bearing a story of other days. Aunt Jane made a pass at it with her hoe, and laughed as the little creature disappeared on the other side of the fence.
"I never see a striped snake," she said, "that I don't think o' Sam Amos and the time he saw snakes. It wasn't often we got a joke on Sam, but his t'u'nament and his snake kept us laughin' for many a day.
"Sam was one o' them big, blunderin' men, always givin' Milly trouble, and havin' trouble himself, jest through pure keerlessness. He meant well; and Milly used to say that if what Sam did was even half as good as what Sam intended to do, there'd be one perfect man on God's earth. One of his keerless ways was scatterin' his clothes all over the house. Milly'd scold and fuss about it, but Sam got worse instead o' better up to the day he saw the snake, and after that Milly said there wasn't a more orderly man in the state. The way of it was this: Sam was raisin' an embankment 'round one of his ponds, and Uncle Jim Matthews and Amos Crawford was helpin' him. It was one Monday mornin', about the first of April, and the weather was warm and sunny, jest the kind to bring out snakes. I reckon there never was anybody hated a snake as much as Sam did. He'd been skeered by one when he was a child, and never got over it. He used to say there was jest two things he was afraid of: Milly and a snake. That mornin' Uncle Jim and Amos got to the pond before Sam did, and Uncle Jim hollered out, 'Well, Sam, we beat you this time.' Uncle Jim never got tired tellin' what happened next. He said Sam run up the embankment with his spade, and set it in the ground and put his foot on it to push it down. The next minute he give a yell that you could 'a' heard half a mile, slung the spade over in the middle o' the pond, jumped three feet in the air, and run down the embankment yellin' and kickin' and throwin' his arms about in every direction, and at last he fell down on the ground a good distance from the pond.
"Amos and Uncle Jim was so taken by surprise at first that they jest stood still and looked. Amos says, says he: 'The man's gone crazy all at once.' Uncle Jim says: 'He's havin' a spell. His father and grandfather before him used to have them spells.'
"They run up to him and found him shakin' like a leaf, the cold sweat streamin' out of every pore, and gaspin' and sayin', 'Take it away! Take it away!' and all the time he was throwin' out his left foot in every direction. Finally Uncle Jim grabbed hold of his foot and there was a red and black necktie stickin' out o' the leg of his pants. He pulled it out and says he: 'Why, Sam, what's your Sunday necktie doin' up your pants leg?'
"They said Sam looked at it in a foolish sort o' way and then he fell back laughin' and cryin' at the same time, jest like a woman, and it was five minutes or more before they could stop him. Uncle Jim brought water and put on his head, and Amos fanned him with his hat, and at last they got him in such a fix that he could sit up and talk, and says he:
"'I took off my necktie last night and slung it down on a chair where my everyday pants was layin'. When I put my foot in my pants this mornin' I must 'a' carried the necktie inside, and by the time I got to the pond it'd worked down, and I thought it was a black snake with red stripes.'
"He started to git up, but his ankle was sprained, and Uncle Jim says: 'No wonder, Sam; you jumped about six feet when you saw that snake crawlin' out o' your pants leg.'
"And Sam says: 'Six feet? I know I jumped six hundred feet, Uncle Jim.'
"Well, they got him to the house and told Milly about it, and she says: 'Well, Sam, I'm too sorry for you to laugh at you like Uncle Jim, but I must say this wouldn't 'a' happened if you'd folded up that necktie and put it away in the top drawer.'