60 In Touch with Nature. 



always cut the grass in the devil's kitchen, as one 

 sunny nook was known, had no end of adventures 

 there with snakes. His strangest tale was not far 

 from the truth, for, as my grandfather said, they 

 were not all " strictly correct." Hercules started 

 to mow the corner, but the snakes rebelled. A 

 dozen, he claimed, stood upon their tail-tips and 

 defied him. He was about to drop his scythe and 

 run, when the idea of being twitted as a coward 

 held him back, and he made a bold strike forward, 

 as if there was nothing there but waving grass. 

 The largest snake was ready for this movement 

 and dashed at the scythe, swallowing the blade 

 and six inches of the sneed. So Hercules said 

 when, weak with terror, he reached the house. 

 My grandfather found that he had struck the 

 snake in the mouth and cut the body so that it 

 covered the end of the blade. This is about the 

 proportion of fact and fiction in modern snake 

 stories. That was fifty years ago, and now the 

 devil's kitchen has to content itself with little 

 garter-snakes. The world grows better, backward, 

 in some respects. 



Leaving the shores, with all their wildness and 



