Nero's Death

 As close as I can get in my memory, I was about seven years old when my first tragedy came.  It was also the same year that some good angel gave me my beautiful baby sister, who became my very own idol and comfort for many years.  She gave me a reason to live for many years.

We lived on the very almost top of this little mountain.  A little further up on the mountain there was a very small cemetery.  On the other side of the small mountain was a big, big rock that was almost like a carpet.  It seemed to me to be as big as the earth and it had caves in it with lots of moss and the best of all thing for us kids.  It had lots and lots of "mountain tea".  Mountain tea is a mint like plant that tastes liike peppermint.  It has a very pretty blossom too.  The other things that little mountain had was lots of mean old snakes, but we had a dear friend who would always look around and clear out the snakes and who gave his life for us because of his love for us.  That will come a little later in my story.

After my little sister was born, my Mama would feed her from her breast and than she would let me have her to play with the rest of the day.  Mama was always very busy.  I can't remember just what she was busy doing. I can't remember why, but it seemed that I was always alone with my small brothers and now my baby sister.  Mama would help me make what I called a sugar tit-just a bit of butter or lard and sugar tied into a rag for Tootsie to suck on.

One day on  very warm summer day-I think it was in September because it was after my baby was born and while she was very small-I was up on that little mountain gathering mountain tea with my little family and my friend Mary Lou.  Old Nero was with us as usual, and as always he would sniff all around through the bushes before he would allow us kids to go into them.  He would sort of use his big head and sort of push us back and then he would go into the space ahead of us.  I don't know why he did this-I guess my guardian angel was Nero.

On this day Nero went into this very dense thicket of ferns and small vines and was sort of growling or snuffing and then he gave a small bark of pain.  He came back to us and we could see that he was in trouble.  I don't know how we knew what to do, but we decided to go back down the mountain as fast as we could.  Nero was acting like he was dizzy and we had to help him sometimes when he would falter.  When we got back down to the house, my Mama was not in the house, so I went to the back of the house where  we could see the garden where my Mama was that day.  We hollered and hollered-that is what we called screaming for help.  My Mama came up from the small garden that was on the low part of the little farm where we lived because she knew we would not call her unless there was an emergency.  By the time Mama got to the house, we had poured cold water over Nero and had put him in the shade and and we were very frightened as we were later to learn to be.

Our old friend who had probably saved our lives was very sick.  We never did know what kind of snake that bit him.  But there were rattlesnakes or copperheads and many other kinds of snakes in those mountains and it is a miracle that we had this dear old friend along to watch out for us.  Nero died that day. This was a tragedy for us all.