<TITLE>11. Par 40-43</TITLE>L-40 They were setting on the porch and I was teaching them, one summer morning, about ten o'clock. And I happened to notice, coming in the gate come an old opossum, coming from about two squares across the road to a woods. I'm the only one's got a fence along there. It come by three houses, turned into my gate, and here it come. And I run out, and I said, "That opossum's got rabies."
We been talking about a young colored girl who gave birth to a illegitimate child, wrapped it into a--a blanket, and smothered it to death, and had a taxi cab take her out on the river, and she stopped out there and just dumped the bundle over in the river. And the cab reported it, the life guards come out (the coast guards, rather) and picked up the bundle. It was a dead baby. Very lovely looking girl, and her picture is in the paper.
And I said, "She wasn't a mother. She wasn't worthy to be called a mother. Mothers has a--a sacredness to it. She's just a female that had a baby. A mother means love."

L-41 So many women today, they bring children, that don't deserve the name of mother. So then, her take that baby and dumped it into the river. And when I seen this old opossum turn in, I said, "That opossum's got rabies. I run out and stop it." Mr. Wood is--he was a Jehovah Witness. His boy, he didn't believe in the meetings either. And he brought his boy in a meeting, had a crippled leg, and the Lord called the boy out and his leg is perfectly normal and straight. He got saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. His wife's a veterinary. They quit... He was a contractor, quit his business and just moved over next door to me from Kentucky.

L-42 And he had been raking in my yard out there. I went and took this rake and throwed it over the old opossum. Gene and Leo come out with me. I said (it's about ten o'clock in the day, in the hot summer) and I said, "The old opossum's got rabies." I said, "I suppose..." For a opossum doesn't travel in daytime, if anybody knows animal life, a opossum prowls at night. And I said, "The..." I hunted them for years. And I said, "They don't moved until the sun goes down." So I said, "Something's wrong with her. And when I happened to look, her left shoulder was chewed up by the dogs, or either hit by a car; it was swollen many times its size. And this may sound kindly bad on the tummy, now, but the flies had blowed her and maggots was working all around through her shoulder.
"Why," I said, "The poor old thing's a dying. And she's just beside herself." And when I was holding her down with the rake, I happened to notice, and nine little, bitty baby opossums, about two or three inches long... A opossum and a kangaroo is the only animal that has a pocket they pack their young in.

L-43 And when I held this rake on her, she was biting at it. Very unusual for a opossum, 'cause they, what they call, play opossum; just lay down. But she was biting at it and that's the reason I thought she had rabies. And when I seen these nine little baby opossums, "Oh," I said, "She's a mother." I said, "Gene, you and Leo come here. I want to teach you a better lesson." I said, "This old mother opossum is way more of a mother than that woman was that drowned her baby." I said, "This old animal, she hasn't got thirty minutes to live. She can't live like that. She's dying. But she will spend that thirty minutes fighting for her babies. For she's a mother, a real mother. She loves them."


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