The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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SNAKES CHARMING SMALL ANIMALS
By S. C. Turnbo
We give here a few accounts of settlers viewing serpents charming rabbits and squirrels. Jim Rhodes tells about Mrs. Tempy Scisney passing along a road on Mountain Creek near the division line between Ozark County, Mo., and Marion County, Ark. Her little daughter, Josephine, was with her and the child discovered a rattlesnake lying in a coil and singing. A grown rabbit was in a few feet of the snake jumping to and fro and gradually moving up nearer the snake. Mrs. Scisney stood and watched them until the rabbit was in reach of the rattler and it struck the rabbit. At this moment she approached the serpent and killed it with a stick. By the time the snake died the rabbit was dead also.
"A long time ago," said Tom Fisher, "when the John Tabor
farm two miles below Powell on Crooked Creek in Marion Co., Ark., was only
partly cleared up, I was in the creek bottom one day and noticed a gray
squirrel running up and down the trunk of a water oak tree about two feet
in diameter. The little animal appeared to be greatly agitated and was chattering
and backing. When the squirrel would run up the tree several yards above
the ground it would stop and throw its tail over its body, when wheel about
and run down the tree. It repeated this several times and would run down
the tree. It repeated this several times and would run down closer to the
ground every time. After an elapse of a few minutes it run down to the ground
and did not go back up the tree. It also ceased chattering. There was a
cluster of bushes stood between me and the foot of the tree which hid the
squirrel from me and I walked around to see what the squirrel was doing
and was surprised to see a rattlesnake swallowing it. None of the squirrel
was visible but its tail. I now killed the snake and with the aid of two
sticks I pushed the dead squirrel out of the snake’s throat."
Matthew Mashburn, the industrious blacksmith who died at Protem, Mo., a
few years ago and is buried in the cemetery there, told of his father, James
Mashburn, witnessing a rattlesnake charm a grown fox squirrel six miles
west of Gainesville.. Mo., in 1872. "Father said that when he first
noticed the squirrel it was acting strange. It was on the trunk of a tree
and about four feet above the ground. The little animal was much disturbed
and was barking and chattering. Then father said he saw a rattlesnake lying
in a half coil at the foot of the tree. The squirrel now commenced jumping
and running up and down the tree and would approach the reptile nearer each
time it run down toward the ground. The squirrel kept up its peculiar action
for ten minutes, when it almost touched the snake and the latter caught
it with its mouth. Father went up now and dispatched the rattler. But the
squirrel was dead. I saw the snake and squirrel both a few minutes after
father killed the snake," said Mr. Mashburn, "and we left them
both lying at the foot of the tree."
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