Young’un Screaming Bloody Mercy

Excerpt from The Last Remaining Indian in the Okefenokee Swamp, by Tommy Hartley:

“Old man Lee was laying on the end of the porch sunning, same as the gator. He heard the young’un screaming bloody mercy as the gator was get’en her and draggin’ her to where he could get into the water with ‘er. The old man who was laying right there on the porch grabbed his gun from behind the door, ran out to the edge of the water and shot the gator before he got too far out in the swamp with the girl. When the old man shot, the gator turned the young’un loose of course and the old man grabbed his bateau, paddled out and got the young’un out of the water as quick as he could.”

In my search for anything Okefenokee, I came across a used copy of The Last Remaining Indian in the Okefenokee Swamp by Tommy Hartley (LAH Publishing Company, 2003). Hartley writes in the inside cover, “Both of my parents were raised as swampers in the late 1800’s… We were swampers and spoke swamper and now I enjoy speaking and writing swamper.” Hartley passes down entertaining swamp stories that were told to him by his mother. It appears the book may be out of print, but I recommend it for reading, especially if you enjoy southern culture and history.

iNaturalist observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/55823707