Free Mother of Ten by J. B. Rowley

black body slithering towards us. I
couldn’t understand why we had stopped moving. I wanted to run - very fast.
    “It’s
gone,” said Maxie.
    I
didn’t open my eyes. I did not trust my brothers. Maxie might be playing a
trick on me.
    “All
right,” said Dad. “You can relax now.”
    I
opened my eyes at last. Bobby made to move toward Dad’s hat but Dad put a
restraining hand on him.
    “Careful,”
he said.
    He
picked up a long branch and poked at the hat, lifting it up and reeling it in
like a fish on a line.
    “Come
on,” said Dad. “We have enough wood for now.”
    We
carefully gathered up our bundles of dry sticks that Mum called morning wood,
probably because she used it to light the fire in the morning, and returned
home.
    Snakes
in the bush were one thing. Having snakes around the house was a different
matter altogether. Any of us kids could easily be bitten, either by
accidentally treading on a snake or because of our own foolishness. Besides,
snakes had been known to venture into people’s houses. So when my brothers
discovered a nest of slim, silver baby snakes under the wooden platform at the
end of the veranda on which the rainwater tank stood, Dad had to do something.
I watched the writhing bundle of hatchlings with revulsion. From the look on my
mother’s face, she apparently felt the same. She gathered all of us up onto the
veranda. Bobby and Maxie protested but she was firm.
    “Let
your father handle it,” she said.
    Dad
pushed his hat back and scratched his head.
    “I
can get rid of these hatchlings easily enough,” he said. “I’m worried there
might be an adult around somewhere.”
    He
used a long pole to lift the loose timber and rocks under the water tank,
keeping his distance lest a snake dart out and strike at him. Eventually he
satisfied himself that there were no adult snakes hiding anywhere.
    “All
right, Bobby and Max, you can come and help me now,” said Dad.
    My
brothers were down from the veranda like a shot.
    “Keep
your eyes peeled and yell if you see an adult snake,” he said.
    He
then used a shovel to drag the bundle of baby snakes from under the tank stand
out into the open where he could kill them. By now the full realisation of what
had to happen to the hatchlings must have hit Mum.
    “Dad,”
she said, before my father even had a chance to raise the shovel to strike.
    He
looked at her.
    “They’re
only babies,” she said.
    He
shook his head.
    “We
can’t leave them, Mum. It’s too dangerous.”
    She
didn’t say anything else but held his eyes. Something passed between them.
Finally, Dad nodded.
    “Max,”
he said. “Go and fetch me a hessian bag from the shed. Bobby, keep your eyes
peeled for that snake.”
    So,
while Mum took the rest of us inside the house, Dad, with help from my
brothers, bagged the baby snakes. Later, he took the squirming bag out into the
bush.
    I
don’t remember seeing my father kill any snakes but my brothers did. They
recounted one slaying with emphasis on the gruesome details.
    “Dad
just whacked it on the head with the shovel,” said Bobby.
    “Hard,”
said Maxie. “He whacked it hard.”
    “Yeah,
its tail was flicking around like crazy.”
    “You
shoulda seen it. Dad just kept whacking ‘til it was dead.”
    “Dead
as a doornail.”
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 9
    Even
my father could not overcome the calamity that arrived in 1958. Because of my
habit of eavesdropping on my parents, I was the first of the kids to know about
it.
    One
night when I was supposed to be in bed I was crouched underneath the half open
window of the kitchen, part of which was now converted to my bedroom after all
the meals for the day were done with. I had an excellent vantage point for
listening. On the other side of the window, my parents sat on the veranda
playing cards in the light of the kerosene lantern. This was a favourite past
time of theirs and they taught us kids to play games like Euchre and Five
Hundred. But when their labours