A SNAKE STORY.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 542, 8 July 1869, Page 3

A SNAKE STORY.

A few years ago there lived in this vicinity (Rattlesnake Mountain) an eccentric character, who conceived the brilliant project of sending to market a large and tine assortment of these amiable reptiles, and realizing a prolit on them. They were created and placed here for some good reason, he argued ; and why not to sell ? Accordingly, his wife smiling upon the enterprise, he commenced fonuiug a collection. This worthy pair lived alone together in a solitary loghouse, favorably situated for the execution of their precious scheme. The ground all around them was fertile in crawling things. The old man procured a dry-goods box and placed it in his garret — which, by the way, was separated from the lower room of the house only by a flooring of loose boards. It was a box capable of accommodating some two or three hundred snakes, for he meant business; large sales and small profits was his idea. He had a smaller box for field operations. Carrying this between them, and armed with a pair of tongs, the good man and his dame would go out of a morning to the hedges, and perhaps bring in a dozen lusty rattlers, to be transferred to the big box in the garret when they came home to dinner. In this way they had accumulated near two hundred specimens, when one night a rather unpleasant circumstance occurred. The snake-collector was awakened by his wife, who had previously awakened by strange aid alarming noises. Every minute or two came a dull, heavy thump on the floor of their sleeping apartment, which was parlor, kitchen, bedroom, all in one. ' ' I do believe," said the wife, "them 'eer creeturs have got out of the box, and are dropping down through the garret boards !" The husband listened with the sensations of a speculator whose stock was falling in an unusually disagreeable manner. Thump ! thump ! it was raining rattlesnakes ; and how to stop the shower ? There was great danger in putting a foot out of bed, for the room was dark, and the floor was by this time alive with them. But our dealer in live stock was a man of nerve, and knew his cattle. He told the story coolly afterwards: "A bite from oiie of 'em was death, of course. But 1 didn't think that there was much chance o' gittin' bit 'though I stepped on 'em. So I set my foot down perty softly on the floor till I found a clear space, tlea I started for the hearth, sliovin' my feet along on the floor, and shoving the creeturs out of my way, gently, ye know — mighty careful not to hurt 'em, — till I got to the fireplace and raked the coals out of the ashes and lit a lamp. Then we could see 'em, and an interesting sight they was ! Floor a-squirmin' with 'em, and they beginnin' to set their rattles to buzzin' — music I tell ye. But me and my old woman set to work with the tongs, and in half an hour had 'em all back in the box again !" The growing uneasiness of the " creetura," and the trouble of feeding them, rather precipitated the good man's plans, and a few days after this adventure he might have been seen going down the river on a raft, seated on a box, chalk-marked, "Glass Handl WithCair." Not the least astonishing part of the story is, that lie actually sold his collection to showmen and speculators, and came home with money iv his pocket. — " A Oarpetbaggar in Peniisylvania," in the Atlantic Monthly.