We lived near a swamp. Not just any swamp. This one seemed to go on forever. The tenant house we lived in, next to an old cottonwood tree, was at the foot of a steep hill. If we stood in the driveway and looked across the road, the swamp ran to the horizon. On our side of the road, the same swamp continued on. It was our playground. In the spring the swamp would be flooded with the heavy spring rains. We didn't venture out there then, but when the swamp dried up, we would be off and running. It was our playground.

I can still hear Mother telling us to stay out of the swamp. “Yes, Mother, we will”, was our response as my brothers and I made our way into the tall bulrushes. They were so tall and we were so small that a few feet in, you couldn't see us. What a fun place! Trails ran every which way through the swamp. We could play hide and seek or just run the trails to see whatever we could find. We would yell across the bulrushes to each other. Mother's warning had a basis in fact. The area teemed with rattlesnakes, but we never saw even one.

We had taken in another dog we called Spot. He was a Fox Terrier. Spot liked to eat snakes. He knew better than to eat the head of a rattlesnake. He would bring their heads to the yard as trophies and drop them there. If Mother or Dad found one they would throw it into the swamp. The previous year they missed one. It's skull had lain there all winter with upturned fangs. My brothers and I, Mother, too, all walked barefoot in the warm weather. Who needed shoes in the summertime?

On one of her trips to the windmill to fetch water, Mother stepped on those upturned fangs, one of which punctured her little toe. There was enough venom in that fang to cause her leg to swell. We could see it progress up her leg. Mother loaded us all in our old Essex and headed for town to see the doctor. He gave Mother something to put in water to draw out the poison . She recovered with no ill effects. We still played in the swamp.

Those were fun days for the three of us. We didn't have a care in the world. Our guardian angels must have worked overtime protecting our foolhardy little lives. It was obvious that God had plans for our future. We were protected.

Years later the house burned to the ground, leaving only that old cottonwood tree. When I was little, I would chase those fluffs of cotton as they were carried by the wind up into the air up and over the swamp. I even caught a few.