Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1911 — STORY OF A GOOSE [ARTICLE]

STORY OF A GOOSE

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE AND REMARKABLE RESCUE. • Fowl Tumbles Down a Well. Is Solxod: by a Snake and Then Gigantic Hawk Appear* on Scene. At Mount Lebanon In Bienville parish, Louisiana, there was maintained! during the Civil war a laboratory forp the preparation of medicines to bej used in the Confederate service. To> supply the water needed a deep well! was dug. After the war all the buildings connected with the laboratory! were destroyed by fire and the wellj remained yawning and uncurbed. Thus for many years it remained, tor, no one used it and it was no one’s, business to fill it or to cover It over. A pine wood grew up about it and the well long served as a pitfall for animals that strayed in that direction. When a cow or a pig or any other animal disappeared from the neighboring town it was commonly remarked that the animal was “at the bottom of the well,” and that was the last said about it. One day a fine goose which belonged to a well-known man In the vicinity strayed off in the morning and in the evening her brood of goslings came cheeping back without her. It was surmised that the goose might have fallen into the well. Two days afterward the owner of the goose, rifle in hand, on his why to Join a hunting party, passed near the old well and noticed that a large hawk appeared to be greatly interested in something that was going on in the well. The hawk circled round and round above the opening, dived into it, reappeared screaming and went down again. After a succession of such movements the hawk finally emerged from the well with a great white load in his talons,. It was the missing goose, and the goose, to Its owner’s astonishment, had a long black snake hanging from her beak. A shot from the rifle brought the trio to earth and the man set about solving the mystery. The snake appeared to have attempted to swallow the goose, head first, for her beak was sticking in his throat so that he could not get away, nor could she get rid of him. Evidently after her fall down the well the goose had found a foothold on a bit of curbing and had there been attacked by' the snake, with the singular result described. ’ In that predicament she had been pounced upon by the hawk. The owner killed the snake, bagged the hawk and restored the goose to the bosom of her grateful family, for she was little the worse for her extraordinary series of adventures. The hawk was a pretty big fellow, measuring almost five feet from tip to tip of its outstretched wings.