BEWARE OF THE DEVIL'S DARNING NEEDLE 

Cave Springs was a coastal town, or had been. Lying pert near on the extreme southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri state lines. Nature ruled here. It was a numbers game. Millions of insect species and wild animals of all sorts, plus a few tame ones, versus us three humans who shared in calling our surroundings home.

I was taught to respect snakes, all "dumb" animals. That word "dumb" used in that context was not meant to sound mean in any way, it just meant they couldn't talk. Snakes were easy to empathize with. Low to the ground they had to slither along with poor eyesight to find nourishment for the day and to have a Plan B if a predator appeared. I didn't want to be that unnecessary predator. 

While it didn't terrorize me, my least favorite creature of all was the dragonfly, never called that by my grandma Martin. She preferred the more colloquial "snake feeder." Each time I found myself outside in some boundless reverie, I would see one, darting around in Olympian form. That meant a snake was lurking nearby waiting for its carhop to deliver some grub. That snake could be a rattler, the Lord of the Underbrush, my phrasing nod to the lowly reptile with the arsenic bite.

Carefully, I would search and search. Each time no snake. Then I would walk to the house, looking to the ground with each step I took in case one was lying low waiting for me. In house I would tell Grandma for the umpteenth time what had taken place. As always she would say, "It's there."

Grandma knew her nature, so I wasn't about to argue. There was another dragonfly she called the "Devil's Darning Needle," another colloquial expression. It somehow differed slightly from a snake feeder, something she could pick up on what with all the darting goings-on. She knew darning needles, having plenty of them and having put them to good use over the years. The insect one, however -- and this is a big however -- could sew your mouth shut. That is, I imagined, if the Devil ordered it. I considered that even less likely than the snake feeder.

You could not venture outside during the warmer months without encountering dragon flies. Grandma's warnings no doubt were intended to keep a playful youngster alert for snakes in the grass. It worked at that level really well. 

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