Python Eggs

The drunkard makes his start with just a sip, but that sip is the python
egg.

Here's a story I heard told by a girl in Wayne Stake. The story took
hold of me:

A boy goes to a party. They offer him a cocktail. It wasn't a fruit
cocktail. He refuses - the gang is determined, but so is he. He is
called "panty-waist", "mama's boy' - but he stands his ground. They tell
him he must drink with the crowd and smell like a man. The gang is
determined to have him come across.

Finally, with jaws set, they tell
him if he won't be game they will throw him on the floor and pour the
liquor through his teeth. The boy on the spot rises to the occasion;
like a warrior he faces his foes. He has a secret weapon they didn't
dream of - here it is - when he gets through with them, they sizzle.
"Wait a minute," he says, "Let's see if you'll put it through my teeth.
I want to tell you a story."

"Some years ago a boy was out, as I am tonight, they offered him a drink
- he refused. They urged - he weakened and took that night just a
tthimble full. Next week he took it more readily. After that it had only
to be offered him. Boys, he became a drunkard. He fell in love with a
beautiful girl. Of course he straightened out for a while, while he was
courting her. He knew she and her family were opposed to drink. They
were married. A year later a baby came to town, but by this time the man
had gone back to drink. He began to come home drunk. On one of these
nights he was challenged by his good wife. She had stood about all she
could. In desperation she thundered "Bill, you come home again like
this, and I'll take the baby and go home to mother!" Well the demon
within him broke loose. He grabbed her arm. It was as if it were held in
a vise. He threw her out into the Wyoming blizzard. She grabbed the
baby, also an overcoat hanging on a chair by the door. He was so drunk
that the second he hit the pillow he was dead to the world. The
realisation at dawn of what he had done, almost electrocuted him. He
came to with terror - he grabbed the door, pretty nearly pulling it off
it's hinges. He rushed out into the snowdrifts. He was almost crazy. One
hundred yards from the house he detected a little hill in the snow. With
eyes bulging, desperately but cautiously, he dug into the snow. There he
uncovered his sweetheart, the mother of his child. She was cold in
death. The baby, through the protection of the body of it's mother and
the overcoat snatched as she left the room, had a spark of life left.
The baby was brought back to life."

Defiantly our hero faced the gang. "Now boys, if you are ready to put
that stuff through my teeth, I am ready for you! I AM THAT BABY !!!"