1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: SNAKES ALWAYS FIND ME

If people in Purdon thought it odd for my parents to leave three teenage kids alone for an entire summer, they must have talked about it in whispers. Only one criticism reached our family's ears and that was indirectly.  Someone said something slightly critical to Elton's girlfriend's mother, who was  a quiet, reclusive woman.  That day, she uncharacteristically spoke her mind, defending the older two children  as "extremely mature".  She figured Nettie would take care of Stephen.  It turned out that the summer would call for maturity beyond anything we could have anticipated.
 Elton worked at the gin all summer and looked after Nettie's cows over at her ranch in Corbet.  Neila kept everything done at the house, visited a lot with her friends, and tried to avoid cooking as much as she could.  She did not plan to become a domestic goddess over the summer.  Her interests lay not in cooking and cleaning, but in writing and journalism.  She was working hard on several public speaking projects to try to qualify her for the top 4-H award, Gold Star Girl. One of her best friends was working diligently in shrub identification, also for the 4-H club.  Neila certainly had no interest in trying for that award.
We settled into the motel, which was mostly for families of people who, like my dad, were staying for extended lengths of time. Our little motel house consisted of  two small  bedrooms, a bath, and a miniscule kitchen with a tiny table, one that looked like it might have been made for pygmies.
The bedrooms were separated by a small walkthrough that housed built-in chest of drawers on each side.  The drawers were so wide and deep that one of them became Jan's bed each night.  She was tucked in with thick blankets to cushion the bottom and a tiny pillow.  She liked the cozy feeling, and we would put the makeshift crib in the same room with Susan and me.  We shared a double bed which meant that we often had to kick our way into dreamland while establishing our territory.

The little compound of motelhouses, built on the corner of two busy streets, had about eight little houses set loosely in a large L pattern around the gravel parking area.  Green plants broke up the white stucco exterior.  The washing machines and dryers were housed in a screened-in building at the back of the compound. 

We spent several partial days there every week since Mother was washing for five of us.  Susan often stayed in the little motelhouse reading.  Sometimes Jan would be taking a nap, and she stayed inside with Susan.  I didn't want to take a nap, so I usually went outside with Mother and explored the area around the washroom. 
On one of those afternoons, I sat in the plastic chairs swinging my legs and kicking my feet.  Something caught my attention on the reddish wood of the wall.  A movement, something, I wasn't sure.  I stared toward the wall for a few seconds, but nothing happened.  I started swinging my legs again, looking down at my feet.  Mother stood at the washer, her back to me, loading clothes from the basket into the machine.  She picked up a box of Tide and set it on a table by the washer.
Just then, I caught a movement again. 
I looked at the cords from the machines.  There were three sets from the washers and three from the dryers.  They were configured so that all of them ran up the walls just above the machines where they were  plugged into large round outlets. 
"Do cords move?", I suddenly asked.
"What?"
"Do cords move?"
"No, I don't think so," she answered, not looking back at me, still  working on the laundry.
"Well, that one is moving," I said, pointing to a vertical two by four that had next to it what I thought was a black cord running from the machines almost  halfway to the the ceiling.
At that, she quickly looked up.  "Oh my," she said.  "Honey, leave and run in the house.  Right now."
I was frozen to the chair.  The snake's beady eyes seemed to be looking directly at me, and I was afraid to move past him to the door.  It seemed like he might hurl himself off the wall and wrap around my neck, simultaneously biting me with one deep venomous killing bite.   I was already paralyzed, arms and legs limp, immovable.
"Go in the house, Felisa!" Mother commanded.
"I'm too scared."
"Go!  And tell Susan to ask Mrs. Bivens in the office for a hoe."
Sheer terror finally propelled me off the chair.  My legs felt wobbly, and I kept my head down as I bounded for the screened door, hitting it full force, running through it and letting it slam, just like at home. A little piece of the screened wire stuck in my thumb and made it bleed, but I hardly felt it.
Susan usually didn't move fast, but she rushed to the motel office to get help as soon as I burst through the door with the news, and I sat inside the house,  worrying that the snake had attacked Mother or bitten her.  An eternity later, at least five minutes, Susan came in the house and told me the snake was gone. 
"Where?" I asked, suspicious.
"Snake heaven," she said.
"Is Mother okay?"
'That snake was no match for a mother protecting her kids," Susan laughed. "Mrs. Bivens helped her."
"Go on out there if you want.  She's finishing the laundry."
"No, I think I'll stay inside for a while.  It's hot out there anyway.  Have you got a book with pictures I can look at?"
"Here's one.  Eloise."
"Will you read it to me?"
"Yeah, I guess.  You've had a rough day, I guess."
Jan and I crawled up on the bed, Susan between us with the large book with its colorful pictures. 
"Eloise was a little girl who lived at The Plaza Hotel in New York," she began.
I wondered if Eloise would like living at Mrs. Biven's motelhouse  like we did.

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