stant flashed the hope that I had found an un- 

 cursed snake, one of the original ones that went 

 on legs. I reached for the hat, bent over, and 

 pulled it off, and, lo ! not a walking snake. Just 

 an ordinary snake, but with it a live wood- 

 frog ! 



This, at least, was interesting, the only real 

 piece of magic I have ever done. Into my hat 

 had gone only a live snake, now I brought forth 

 the snake and a live frog. This was a snake to 

 conjure with ; so I tied him up again and finally 

 got him home. 



The next Sunday the minister preached a 

 temperance sermon, in which he said some 

 dreadful things about snakes. The creatures do 

 seem in some dark, horrible way to lurk in the 

 dregs of strong drink : but the minister was not 

 discriminating ; he was too fierce and sweeping, 

 saying, among other things, that there was a 

 universal human hatred for snakes, and that one 

 of the chief purposes of the human heel was to 

 bruise their scaly heads. 



I was not born of my Quaker mother to share 

 this "universal human hatred for snakes " ; but 

 I did get from her a wild dislike for sweeping, 

 [40] 



