Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1887 — She Saw Snakes. [ARTICLE]

She Saw Snakes.

One cold day John Simons, of Holiday, Pa., threw on to his fire-place for a back log a large unsplit oak stick. f i he p ece had laid for a long time on the wood pile, but with the exception of a small hole in a decayed knot on one side of the stick, it was to a 1 appearances perfectly sound. Simons and his wife sat in front of the fireplace, and soon after the sti k had been thrown on, Mrs. Simons startled her husband with a loud scream and jumped quickly on a chair, pointing excitedly at the back log. Simons looked, and to his astonishment saw a snake coming out of a hole in the knot, which was on the upper side of the stick. The log had not begun to bla e up, and the snake made its escape uninjured into the room and squirmed across it to a corner, where it coiled itself up. It was quickly followed by two other snakes, which also got away from their imperiled wintering place in safety. They were all rattlesnakes of good size, and the heat had warmed them into all their normal liveliness and activity. Simons killed the three snakes with a pair of tongs. They had twenty-one rattles among them.