[Where Pana Stands.]
WHEN the writer was a boy, where Pana now stands was an unbroken wilderness, and the land belonged to the government, and was subject to entry at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre; but that had to be paid in gold or silver, as the paper money of the country was so uncertain. But the people doubted whether the land would ever be worth the money. Tom. Bell lived at Bell’s Grove, West, and the Abbot’s and a few others lived on the head of Beck’s Creek, East; but the prairie where Pana stands there was nothing to show that man had ever been there, not a tree or shrub was there; but the deer and wolves raised their young there, and the rattlesnake had his own way; only when the prairie burned over in warm weather, then thousands of them burned to death. When the men were first breaking up the prairie sod they would tell of killing twenty to thirty rattlesnakes in one day.
[The Snake.]
SIXTY years ago we was plowing with a yoke of steers in a field that lay idle the year before, and we was barefoot, and there was a great many dead weeds in the field. We was plowing along, interrupting nobody, and we felt something tight around the foot, and we thought it was a forked or crooked weed, and we kicked, and instead of its coming off it rather seemed to get tighter, and we looked down and saw it was about a second-sized snake wrapped around our foot; and you ought to have seen him go, when we kicked the next time. We kicked with the spirit and with the understanding, when we saw what it was. It was not doing much harm, but we did not want it there.