The most amazing of all snakes that mankind has known was a rattlesnake that crawled late one evening into a railroad station on the lower Mississippi. The employee of this station - let's call him Jonas Jag, because this name is as good as any other - left the door ajar at night so that the cool breeze from the river could come in.
As he himself says, work that evening simply tormented him; he was rarely able to take a nap, just once every five or six minutes, not more often. And suddenly he heard strange sounds, not at all like the chirping of grasshoppers, the cry of an owl or the croaking of frogs. Jonas looked around, up and down, and at the leg of his chair he saw a coiled rattlesnake. She had so many rattles on her tail that there was no empty space left. The snake moved its head in all directions, looking at Jonas, his kerosene lamp and even the cobwebs on the ceiling.
Jonas did not dare to move: he was very afraid that he would scare the snake and it would accidentally bite itself by the tail and, what good, would be poisoned to death - there was too much poison in it. He froze in place, holding his breath, wondering what to do next.
The snake developed, so to speak, stretched out to its full height and crawled around the room, as if looking for something. Only then did Jonas notice how thin she was - just skin.
Not knowing what to do, Jonas decided to make friends with the rattlesnake just in case. He slowly got up, took a jug of milk out of his lunch bag, poured some into a tin mug, put it on the floor and was about to invite the snake to taste the treat, but the trouble was, he didn’t know how to address it. He couldn’t tell her: “Listen, snake!” It would be rude.
He looked carefully at the snake again, and it seemed to him that it looked like a lanky, skinny porter whose name was Leander.
Before Jonas could call, “Leander!” - as the snake described a circle and slid straight towards the mug of milk. She looked into it, froze in place, as if pondering what to do, and began to quickly lap it up. After draining the mug, the snake looked up at Jonas.
Jonas read melancholy in her gaze and realized that she was very lonely. Jonas himself felt lonely, especially on night shifts at the station, when there was no one to talk to. Well, a snake is better than nothing. Especially one like this, full of friendly feelings.
Jonas talked a little with Leander and returned to his workplace, to the telegraph machine. He was just learning Morse code. As soon as he had time to tap out dot-dash, which meant the letter “a”, and then dash-dot-dot-dot, which meant the letter “b”, Leander had already crawled onto the table.
This is where Jonas's moment of surprise truly came.
“I couldn’t believe my own eyes,” Jonas admitted when he later told this story. “As soon as I finished tapping the letter “b” with a copper key, Leander raised his tail and first moved it from side to side, and then waved it. Made one long
swing and three short nods, can you imagine? There was no doubt about it; he used his tail like a telegraph key to knock out the letter “b”: dash-dot-dot-dot. It turns out that Leander was familiar with Morse code!
He knew all the alphabet by heart, the only troubles were with the letter “x”, which consisted of four dots. The fact that, instead of waving from side to side, he was forced to nod his tail, Leander became terribly excited. In addition, he could not count well and would sometimes beat his tail up to ten times before he calmed down. However, he mastered the letter “x”, and he and Jonas now had a long conversation.
Leander told Jonas that he came from a large family that numbered twenty little snakes, only all his sisters and brothers drowned during the flood. He was so attached to them that when he talked about it, his tail trembled with excitement.
Leander not only kept Jonas good company, but was useful in other ways. He deftly wrapped his tail around the floor brush, arched his back and, moving his nose along the floor, blew like a real hurricane, blowing dust in the corners. And here’s something else I learned: to guess the approach of a train. He craned his head through the window, stuck out his long, thin tongue, and caught the vibration of the wheels touching the steel rails while the train was still thirty-one miles from the station. Then, if Jonas happened to fall asleep, and this actually happened every five or six minutes, as you already know, Leander would quietly touch Jonas on the shoulder and wake him up.
They became such friends that Jonas now couldn’t even imagine how he had managed without Leandra. And Leander reciprocated his feelings, which he never tired of repeating every evening using Morse code.
And then Jonas received an order to transfer to another station. I had to tell this sad news to my friend Leander.
“My heart sank with sadness,” Jonas admitted later.
He almost cried when he tapped out this news on the telegraph to Leander, who sat opposite him on the table and silently listened to his confession.
“I was happy to meet you,” Jonas tapped out. “And now I’m being transferred to another station.” The only thing that would console me is if you would agree to cross with me.”
Leander sat as if submerged. He was silent for a minute or two, thoughtful. Then he shook his tail in response. He couldn’t leave this place, no matter how much he wanted to, he said. For hundreds of years, his family has lived on the banks of the Big Black River. And since he is the last of their kind, it is his duty to remain in this place to which they are all so accustomed. Without hiding his disappointment, he thanked Jonas for teaching him Morse code, and slowly walked towards the exit. Before slipping out into the darkness, he turned around again, sadness in his eyes. He raised his tail and tapped “73,” which in telegraph language means “Goodbye.”
Jonas and Leander never met again. It is known, however, that Leander lived a long and happy life and taught Morse code to all the other rattlers that lived on the banks of the Big Black River. True, some people say that all this is lies, that Jonas Jag invented all this himself, and he was still considered an honest man.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru