“Sneeze-wood bark, isn’t it?”
“Looks like it, don’t it? But there’s bark and there’s bark. This is Abe Pike’s Bark, possessing properties which will alleviate the sufferings of the human race by putting a lightning end to the enemies of the human kind. That’s what I’ve studied out to put in the papers in big letters. There’s money in it, now; ain’t there?”
“I don’t see it, Uncle.”
“Ah! the limitations of knowledge, my boy, is accountable for a pot of ignorance. You think that’s plain ordinary bark, but that’s where your limitations run dry. I’ll jes’ tell you how I diskivered this great and marvellous killer of the centry. Come Friday fortnight I sot out with the axe to chop out a pole for the cowshed—t’other on’ been eaten thro’ by those plaguy ants. Well, I knew of a tree way down in the kloof that had been growin’ for that shed o’ mine ever since the seed dropped on the ’xact spot where nature had provided a bed for it. When you come to think of it, everything has got its purpose all smoothed out from the start, and that little seed spread itself out from the beginnin’ to build up a pole for ole Abe Pike’s cowshed. I sot down on a fallen tree and thought that all out, while the trees round about made a whisperin’ with their leaves over the head o’ that there sneeze ’ood that was doomed so to speak, by reason o’ my cows, and the necessity of keepin’ ’em out o’ the rain in the winter. Well, I sot there thinking all these thoughts until it was too dark, and I went away home ’thout having cut the tree. Next mornin’ I took up my axe and went down into the kloof and took off my coat. I gave two blows and stopped.”
“Too much work?”
“Jes’ you wait. I tole you there was a fallen tree; well, in that tree was a snake. The first blow of the axe woke him, and he popped his head out. The second blow sent a chip that hit him square between the eyes. Out he came biling with rage, and hissin’ like a kettle o’ water, and I just had time to dodge behind the tree when he let out. His fangs stuck right in the wood, and with a clip I cut his head off. I stood away back looking at his writhing body and at his wicked head sticking there in the tree jes’ where I had made the wedge. As I looked in, there came to pass a remarkable circumstance.”
“Yes?”
“Yes; that tree began to lose colour. It was a healthy tree, sound as a bell, with a heart o’ iron and a crown o’ green leaves; but as I stood there in the space o’ maybe one minit, or a minit and a half, it begun to turn pale and sickly.”
“Turn pale!”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I said. First the leaves shuddered and rustled, and grew moist; then they slowly turned yeller, curling up as if they’d been frost-bitten, only sadder. It s’prised me, that did, for there was somethin’ in the way the leaves went that struck a shudder through me, ’twas so human like in the manner o’ it. But that was nothing—the bark suddenly cracked and peeled off—then the white trunk itself standin’ there, exposed in its nakedness began to swell—until it split with a groan—ay, a groan, a moaning shivery gasp o’ pain. ’Twas so like life, I turned and ran, thinkin’ that dead snakes was after me—so that as I ran the fear grew upon me till I came out inter the open. After looking around keerfully I sat on a stone an’ steadied my thinking machine. When I got the fear out o’ me I went back and there was that tree dead as tho’ it had been struck by lightnin’ and bleached by the rain an’ sun.”