How
Snake Learned to Smile
By Teddy Wells, assisted by Grace
Wells
Once upon a time
there was a snake who never smiled. He didn’t have any reason to smile. He
always felt glum. He spent most of his time hiding under rocks or in a borrow.
Sometimes he heard voices outside and came out to be friendly. But children
poked him with sticks or threw rocks at him. Ladies would scream and run away.
Men would say, “I hate snakes. Snakes are so ugly and awful.” So Snake started
to feel ugly and awful.
One morning,
very early on the prairie, he heard men’s voices. They were talking about
finding snakes. Snake hoped that here were some people who liked snakes. So he
poked his head out, but what he heard next did not make him feel
better.
A tall man said,
“We need just one more snake for our experiments. We can even make a hat band of
its skin.” That was when Snake saw the cage the men were holding. He hurried
back into his hiding place and didn’t come out again for a whole day. Snake
still felt ugly and awful and now he was scared, too.
When he did come
out again things got worse. This time it was different men looking for snakes.
Snake was a little more careful now. He watched from behind a rock to see if
these men were good. The older man began to explain to the younger man why they
needed to catch a snake.
“We need a nice,
big bull snake for the museum. If we could catch one today, I can get it stuffed
for the museum over the weekend.” said the older man to the younger one. “Plus
we can assemble the bones for a museum display as well.” Now Snake felt sad,
scared, ugly and awful.
Snake crawled
deeper into his hiding place. This time he didn’t come out again for two whole
days. When he came out, thankfully he saw no one. He hunted for awhile, warmed
himself on top of a rock in the sun shine , watched clouds in the sky, listened
to song birds on the prairie, smelled the lovely prairie flowers all around him,
but he now felt lonely, sad, scared , ugly and awful.
Just when he
thought things could not get even worse, they did. While he slept peacefully in
his borrow, something grabbed hold of him. It was a long stick with pinchers on
the end. It pulled him from his hole. It held him fast. On the other end of the
stick was a mean looking man. The man was laughing cruelly.
“This ugly beast should get us some good money.
We’ll sell him to a zoo where he can live in a cage behind a glass window where
he can’t scare decent people,” said the mean man.
“Ah, its just an
old bull snake. Who’d want that? We should just squash it right here,” said the
skinnier man.
“No, don’t do
it. That dumb guy at the zoo will pay money even for bull snakes.” said the
bigger, mean man.
With a quick
flip and a twist of his body Snake managed to free himself . He landed near his
borrow and slinked into it and hid for three whole days. He got hungry again
though and had to go out to hunt once more. He crawled along as quietly as he
could and tried to stay hidden among the grasses. Because he was so hungry and
so intent on finding food he didn’t hear footsteps approaching. By the time he
heard them a woman was so near he could see his own refection in the camera she
was holding. He froze from fear. Before he could get up the courage to slither
away, she was pointing her camera at him and talking to him in a sweet
voice.
“Don’t be
afraid. I won’t hurt you,” she promised. “You are such a fine snake. I just want
to take some pictures of you. “
Snake now tried
to crawl away when she said in her kind voice, “Please come back. I won’t hurt
you. You are such a beauty! Such pretty colors on your back! I will show your
picture to all my friends. They will like you.”
When he heard
her words, he felt very happy--for the first time in a long time. Then something
happened. He felt a smile starting on his face. He turned and looked right at
the lady and really smiled at her just as her camera clicked. He no longer felt
sad, lonely, scared, ugly or awful. He felt good about himself and felt like he
really was beautiful. Someone liked him. Now he had a reason to
smile.
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There is no telling how many miles you
will have to run, while chasing a dream. - author unknown
