And that wasn't the beginning of it.

Paddy Ryan had come back from the war wrong in his head.

He wore his old army overcoat summer and winter, slept on the ground, and ate whatever he could find.

Once Laddie and Leon, hunting squirrels to make broth for mother on one of her bad days, saw him in our Big Woods and he was eating SNAKES.

If I found Pat Ryan eating a snake, it would frighten me so I would stand still and let him eat me, if he wanted to, and perhaps he wasn't too crazy to see how plump I was.