This Old House

This Old House by Alice L. Doughty

“Be careful, boys. Make sure your gloves are right up over your sleeves,” Jim told his two sons. “If there is a snake in this woodpile, we don’t want anyone to get bit finding it out for sure.”

“Aw, Dad,” they cried in unison. “We’re not three,” added Billy.

No, they weren’t, thought Jim. He was very proud of his two sons. Billy was fourteen to Dave’s sixteen, and they were more than up to this job. In fact, when they heard about the problem their grandmother was having in her new home, they both volunteered to lend their father a hand.

“What kind of a snake is it anyway, Dad?” asked Dave.

“I have no idea if there even is a snake, let alone what kind it is. The only one who has seen it is your grandmother, and she just says that it’s a little, skinny, black snake that moves really fast. She thought she saw a little flash of yellow on its underside, too.”

“Sounds like a garter snake to me,” said Billy. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“The fuss is about an older woman living alone in an old, isolated house she just inherited from her uncle, and it’s far away from anyone she can call for help if she needs it. Then, too, your grandmother just plainly doesn’t like snakes, especially not in her back porch. So put your backs into it, boys, and we’ll get this wood out of here and set her mind at rest.”

It didn’t take the three of them very long to take the firewood out of the porch or to determine that there was no snake anywhere to be found. They even pulled the washer and dryer out from the wall and checked behind them and under them. They checked around the toilet tucked into the back corner, and they even took all of the coats off the hooks and shook them all out but to no avail. There simply was no snake to be found.

“Ok, boys. Let’s put it all back in.” And although the boys groaned for effect, they both pitched in like grown men, and in no time, the wood pile was neatly stacked back in the porch. Then the three of them trooped into the house to where their mother and grandmother were sitting at the kitchen table.

“Did you find it?” asked Harriet anxiously.

“Nothing doing, Grams,” replied Billy. “No snakes, no mice, no grasshoppers, nothing. Your porch is rodent free.”

“Well, I know I saw it. It must have gotten outside somehow,” Harriet mused.

Lil reached over and covered her mother’s hand. “It’s gone now, Mom, so let’s not worry about it anymore.”

xxxxxx

“I think my mother is losing her mind, Jim. She absolutely refuses to let the idea of that snake go. Now she says she sees it every time she goes out into the porch, and sometimes she even says that there are two of them.”

“Well, I don’t know what else we can do, Lil. The boys and I took the entire wood pile apart, and there wasn’t a snake to be found.”

“I guess I should take a run up to the Rawdon Hills and see her today. I’m really worried about leaving her alone in that old house.”

“Won’t she think it’s strange for you to show up through the week? It’s only Wednesday, and usually, you only go up there on the weekends.”

“I know, Jim, but I’ll think of something to tell her. I’m very concerned about her.”

“Ok, then. Why don’t you go up today, and the boys and I will come up Friday evening?” Jim suggested. “I should be able to get off work around three, so we’d be there for supper.”

“Oh, Jim. Are you sure?” asked Lil. “I know Mom would love the company.”

Jim smiled at his wife’s response. “You betcha, lady,” and reaching out, he pulled her down onto his lap.

xxxxxx

“Lil! What are you doing here?” exclaimed Harriet.

Laughing at her surprise, Lil hugged her mother. “I needed a break from all those men in the house,” she declared. “I decided I needed a little Mom time. I hope that’s alright?”

“Of course it is, dear. Put your things down in the room, and I’ll put the kettle on for tea.”

By the time Lil came back into the homey kitchen, there was a cup of tea and a plate of homemade cookies waiting for her.

“The boys are coming down for the weekend, too, Mom.”

“Wonderful. I just hope that old snake doesn’t put in his usual appearance,” she added, a worried look crossing her face, as she glanced over at the porch.

“I’m beginning to think that’s a ghost snake, Mom,” Lil responded, only half in jest. “I’ve looked for it about twenty times, and I’ve never seen it yet.”

“Well, it’s out there,” her mother stated adamantly. “Even if no one else ever sees it, I know what I’ve seen.”

“Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to question you about it. It’s just really strange how it manages to stay out of sight for everyone else. Maybe now that I’m staying here for a few days, I’ll see it, too.”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

xxxxxx

“There it is, Lil! Look,” cried Harriet, pointing to the corner of the porch up near the ceiling. “And look; there’s the other one.” She pointed down a little lower on the wall.

The two women were out in the porch changing the wash around, even though it wasn’t a usual wash day for Harriet, and for the first time, Lil saw the snakes. There were indeed two, little, black snakes slithering down the wall, and they were very fast.

“I just knew that if you spent some time in the porch, you’d see them, too,” declared Harriet, with a smug look on her face. “Ghost snakes, my foot,” she added, a satisfied at last that someone believed her.

“Very funny, Mom, but where did they go to now.”

“I told you they were fast. Usually when I see them, I’m sitting on the toilet with my pants down around my ankles, and I’m too busy trying to get my pants up so I can run away to worry about what escape route the snakes have taken.”

“Ok, Mom,” Lil laughed. “I guess I’ll have to believe you now. I’ll give Jim a call and tell him to bring his work clothes with him when he comes up tonight. The boys, too. It looks like they’ll be taking the wood pile out again.”

xxxxxx

“You’re sure about this, Lil?” asked Jim somewhat sceptically. “It’s a lot of work to go to if there’s nothing there.”

“I’m sure, Jim. I saw them, too. They were right up there in that corner.” She pointed to where the two women had seen the snakes the day before.

So once again, Jim and the boys emptied the porch of all the wood, looked under the washer and dryer and behind them, shook out all the coats on the hooks, and still, they found nothing. There was no sign of a snake anywhere.

“I don’t understand this,” cried Harriet. “How can they not be there when I know for sure that they are?”

“I’m not sure, Harriet,” said Jim, “but how about we leave the wood outside for the week? We’ll fill up the wood box in the kitchen, so you’ll have lots of wood to burn in the kitchen range.”

“Ok, Jim, if you think that will help.”

“It can’t hurt. At least then you might be able to see where they go when they disappear.”

xxxxxx

“I’ve figured it out!” Harriet was on the phone with Lil, and she was very excited. “I know where they’re going.”

“Slow down, Mom,” Lil laughed. “What are you talking about? The snakes?”

“Of course. What else? I’ve been living with those snakes for months now in this old house, and I finally know where they hide.”

“Ok, Mom. I’ll bite. Where do they go?”

“You won’t believe this, but there’s a little tiny hole in the very corner of the porch just at the edge of the linoleum. It’s under where the wood pile was before, and it’s only about as big as a thimble. But those snakes just slip down into it. I actually saw them go down there.”

“Slow down, Mom. This is great news. I’ll let Jim know, and we’ll come up this weekend and see what we can do about them.”

“Great. I’ll see you Friday, and it won’t be soon enough.”

xxxxxx

“Oh, Jim. Am I ever glad to see you.” Harriet looked so relieved when they arrived at her home on Friday.

“What’s up, Harriet?” asked Jim. “I hear you found your snakes.”

“You have no idea. There are five of them now. I feel like I’m under attack.”

“Well, let’s take a look, shall we? Maybe we can just plug up the hole where they’re coming from.”

“I already tried that, and it didn’t work. They just found another way in and brought their friends.”

Billy and Dave laughed. “Maybe we’ll actually get to see these snakes this time, Grams,” said Billy.

And indeed they did. When they went around the old house to the back porch and opened the door, there were six little snakes out in plain sight, and they were just like their grandmother had described them.

“Yup, they’re garter snakes, Grams,” declared Billy, “just like I told you they would be. They’re not poisonous or anything.”

“They can still bite,” snapped their grandmother, to which the boys laughed even harder much to her disgust.

“Boys,” said their mother, but with a slight smile. Even she thought it was kind of funny.

“You know, Harriet,” said Jim quickly, before the situation got any stickier. “I think you may have a bigger problem here than just a few snakes getting into the porch. I think you may have a nest of them somewhere.”

“What do you mean, Jim?” she asked him.

“Well, I can see one snake getting in, maybe even two, but six means they must be living here somewhere. And the only thing I can think is that they must be under the porch itself. We may have to rip up a few floor boards to find them.”

“You do whatever you have to do, but be careful. I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of a few snakes.”

“Come on, boys. Let’s go dig around the old tool shed and see if we can find a crowbar or a pinchbar.”

Lil looked at her mother and saw the strain around her eyes and in the set of her jaw. “Let’s go into the kitchen, Mom. We may as well make a pot of tea and let the boys do their thing. They’ll take care of it.”

“I know they will dear, and you can’t believe how much of a relief it is just to have someone else believe me. I’m sure you all thought that I was going crazy talking about the so-called ghost snake.”

“Well, we all know the truth now, Mom. Let’s go make that tea.”

xxxxxx

As quick as he was, Jim just barely jumped back in time when he pulled up the floorboard and snakes started pouring out of the hole. And there weren’t just one or two snakes; the entire porch was infested with them. There were hundreds. They must have been nesting under there for years.

Stepping back outside with the boys, the three of them made their way around to the side door and into the kitchen.

“Well, we found your snakes, Harriet,” Jim informed her.

“Did we ever,” Dave shouted, awed by the massive volume of snakes there were.

“Yes,” piped up Billy, not to be outdone by his older brother. “There’s hundreds of them. Just hundreds, squirming all over the porch.”

“What?” exclaimed Harriet and Lil in unison.

“Come look, Mom,” urged Dave, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the porch door, while Billy grabbed his grandmother’s hand and pulled her along, too.”

Together, the family gathered in front of the window overlooking the back porch and watched as hundreds of snakes scurried around the floor and up the walls. Fortunately, the door into the main part of the house was snug and tight so that they couldn’t come into the kitchen.

“Oh, dear,” said Harriet in an awed tone. “What do we do now?”

“Now, I think we call in an expert,” Jim declared, “because I for one am totally stymied.”

xxxxxx

“There you go, Mrs. Wheeler,” said the carpenter. “No more snakes.”

“And no more porch either,” she stated, laughing. “But that’s much better than living with all those snakes. Did you ever see the likes?”

“No, I can’t say I ever have,” he replied. “There must have been close to a thousand of them, but we were able to box most of them up and move them away from here. The few we missed all headed for the woods, so you shouldn’t have any more problems with snakes.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Jenkins. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of this. I think my family was ready to have me committed when I started telling them I had a snake in the house. They really didn’t believe me, you know.”

“Well, they’ll believe you now, Mrs. Wheeler. And if they don’t, you just call me, and I’ll come set them straight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. It’s good to be believed. And it’s really good to finally have this old house all to myself. Rodent free, as my grandson would say. And I for one am going to sleep very well tonight knowing they’re gone. They may just have been garter snakes, but they definitely belong out there and not in my house.”