Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1910 — A HUMAN HOOPSNAKE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A HUMAN HOOPSNAKE.

William Gordon, 10 years old, of Clinton, N. J., saw a picture of a human hoopsnake on a circus poster and he stole into the hayloft when his brother Sanford and his sister Belle went tt> the Sunday school. There wasn’t much hay in the loft, and the boy, after a few preliminary stunts in the hand-springing line, buckled his heels to the back of his neck with a strap and began to roll around in imitation of a hoopsnake. On the third lap William inadvertently rolled across a corner of the hatchway and lamost went through. He bumped his ribs on the edges of the opening in the loft. That scared him and made 'him very tired. When he tried to unbuckle his legs from his neck he found he was too near exhaustion to loose the strap. He rolled up near a window opening toward the farm house and tried to shout for help, but his voice was all in and the hoarse squeak could not be heard ten yards away In a panic the bey decided on a desperate measure. He rolled himself over to the head of the stairs, and then, closing his eye"fe, let himself go bumpety-bump to the bottom. He had such momentum he rolled’ right on out through the door of the’ barn and over between the legs of Ketchup and Solferino. the team of horses the elder Gordon was hitching up. Gordon gave a shout of astonishnie?t> the human hoopsnake danger and cut the strap with his knife. Then he laid the young hopeful across his knee and fanned him with a shingle until the boy had no other pain save that.