Cousin Billy Clyde had been acting funny lately, and we were not sure what was wrong with him. Well, truthfully, he acted funny a lot of the time but this time it seemed a little worse. 
The cold winter Saturday that he came out with his hair combed and oiled down with wild root cream oil, we knew for sure something had to be done. Dooley thought it was probably where the mule had kicked him the week before, he said he hadn’t acted right since that happened. 
“Where the mule kicked him makes it hard to sit down, doesn't make you act funny,”  I countered. 
We wondered if he had got into some poison liquor, so we smelled his breath and that made us even more concerned. We couldn't smell any whiskey smell, but his breath did smell strange, like he had brushed his teeth and used mouthwash or something, which was not like Billy Clyde at all to do. Besides that we had never known him to drink anything stronger than  an RC Cola. 
There was the time he faked having a sun stroke, but that was just to get out of weeding the strawberry patch.
We wondered if he was wormy, but it hadn't been that long since his fall worming. After some deep thought Dooley suddenly exclaimed loudly .....  “Snake charmed... Billy Clyde has been snake charmed.” 
We had learned in one of our snakeology classes at Needmore School of higher and lower learning that snakes charmed their victims before  they caught them and ate them. “That sure would have been a big snake that tried to eat Billy Clyde,”  I argued.  “Naw,”   said Dooley.   “It was probably a nearsighted snake and Billy Clyde looked like a mouse to it.” 
So with the problem solved we knew what had to be done to snap him out of it.  We would have to catch Billy Clyde and throw him into the creek and the cold water would bring him out of the spell the snake had put on him.  
It was harder to get him down to the creek than usual, and when he did finally go with us we noticed he had on his good clothes and shoes. 
No difference, it had to be done, so we caught him and dragged him over to the creek and explained to him that this would hurt us worse than it did him, but that he was snake charmed and had to be shocked out of it. 
“It's the middle of the winter and there ain't been a snake out in months,” he tried to argue. 
So we threw him in the deepest part and ran back to the house before he could get out and find any rocks to throw at us. Well that whole thing turned out to be just a misunderstanding.
It seems that Ol' Billy Clyde thought he was in love again and had decided to go down to that little blonde haired Smith girl's house and see if she would talk to him this time, which explained the hair oil and the mouthwash, as well as the good clothes and shoes. 
His mother threatened to give him a good switching for wearing his good clothes and falling into the creek.  He tried to lay the blame on us, but we both denied knowing anything about the whole thing. He was a little mad for a few weeks, but I think we finally convinced him that we had done the right thing for his own good.
It almost seems like that old serpent called Satan has charmed a lot of people into doing things that are in no way for their own good.  
My latest book “Needmore Days” is now available at the Review office in Smithville and at Prichards in Alexandria for twelve dollars each. 
I will be preaching in revival on April 13-16 at Alexandria First Baptist.