A Mississippi Tall Tale 

retold by

S. E. Schlosser

A visitor to Mississippi decided to take a walk along the river in the cool of the evening. His host warned him that the mosquitoes in the area had been acting up lately, tormenting the alligators until they moved down the river. But the visitor just laughed and told his host he wasn't to be put off from his evening constitutional by a few mosquitoes.

As he promenaded beside the flowing Mississippi, he heard the whirling sound of a tornado. Looking up, he saw two mosquitoes descend upon him. They lifted him straight up in the air and carried him out over the river.

"Shall we eat him on the bank or in the swamp?" he heard one ask the other.

"We'd better eat him on the bank," said the other. "Or else the big mosquitoes in the swamp will take him away from us."

Frightened near to death, the man lashed out at the mosquitoes until they lost their grip and dropped him into the river. He was carried two miles downstream before he was fished out by a riverboat pilot. The man left Mississippi the next day, and has never gone for another walk from that day to this.