Browse:Terrapin (Volume 1, entries 251)
Terrapin
Volume 1, entries 251. Source context: SPIRITS → SPIRITS AND ANIMALS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 251
Once mah grandfather wus hurt. Dere's ole lady - he had kill a terrapin once, and de nex' morning he got up, when he put his boot on, de terrapin head was in de boot. And he shuck his boot, choo know, before he put it on, and it fell out. And mah grandmother said, "Wonder wot dat thing doin here?" Papa say, "I killed dis terrapin yesterday an'," he say, "here his head, dis is in mah boot." It was a ole lady wanted him to go with her and he wouldn't do it. And he went on back to work as musely [usually] and he taken sick on de job and he couldn't make it home. He got down and tried to crawl to the house. And ah saw 'im, you know, tryin' to make it to the house, and ah went out dere, me an' - mahself an' mah mother got him and carried him on to de house. An' dey made him some red pepper tea and put dis three pieces of silver [money] in there, in dis pepper tea, an' gave it to him to drink, and that cured him. He killed him [the terrapin] where he was workin' at; he left him there. I reckon she had it fixed so that she mean for this thing to bite him, you know. Well, if it had'a bit him it would of killed him. That thing he said had been follerin' him up an' down de ditch bank, you know, and he killed it and left it there.
[For a terrapin put inside a person, see No. 10.]