My Snake-Stick 



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Newark, and in poking about a brushy pas- 

 ture had observed a large snake glide out of 

 one side of a tuft of huckleberry bushes as she 

 placed her foot into the other. Both halted and 

 looked at one another, the sunlight glancing 

 off the girl's chestnut hair, but reflecting no 

 such reddish intensity as from the flat and bur- 

 nished head the snake held erect, while it calmly 

 awaited her next movement. 



" A copperhead ! " she called out, and half a 

 dozen young men rushed gallantly forward 

 and crushed the creature; a copperhead sel- 

 dom runs. 



The professor told the class that she was 

 right. He pried open the mouth, showed them 

 the poison fangs hanging like curved thorns 

 from the upper jaws, and explained that it was 

 a true pit-viper a rattlesnake, except that it 

 had no rattles, but only a horny tip to the tail; 

 a peculiarity that allied it with the moccasins 

 of Southern swamps the two forming the genus 

 Ancistrodon. 



Helen remembered this field-lesson very well; 

 and when she added that the snake she had just 



