WISCONSIN EXPERIENCES. 2$ 
I think it has been growing on the human 
mind ever since that little drama at the gate of 
Eden, that capacity and ability , rather than birth, 
color, sex, or anything else, should determine 
where individuals belong, and what they shall do. 
If they can use a gun, and are so inclined, what 
is to hinder their doing it ? 
She had had occasion to handle one years 
before, when a girl in Wisconsin. Her parents 
removed to that State when she was about thir- 
teen years of age. Two years later found them 
in an unfinished house, on a woodland farm quite 
a distance from any neighbors. 
Her father, Josiah Dartt, was a surveyor, and 
in following his vocation was usually from home. 
During one of his absences, she and her mother 
were startled one morning by an unusual noise, 
seeming to come from the corner of the unfinished 
part of the house. Their horror can be imagined 
when, upon reaching the door, they discovered 
on the timbers of an unfinished part of the house 
a huge rattlesnake coiled up, his neck arched as 
though preparing to spring, and his rattles in 
rapid motion, while her little sister, hardly four 
years of age, was playing within a few feet 
of him. 
Quick as thought she sprang and caught the 
child, gave it to her mother, and seizing her 
father’s ever-ready gun, placed it across some 
