Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1907 — Grateful Snakes. [ARTICLE]

Grateful Snakes.

That hoop snakes roll up hill I can vouch for on the authority of a man by the name of Bell, whom I knew in Ohio and whose statements were accepted as gospel truth, says Ananias junior in the Chicago Inter Ocean. Out on his farm he had four hoop snakes that were as tanje as kittens and seemed to understand everything he said to them. On one occasion Bell started at cider making, and after the press was started and the cider began to fill the first barrel It was found that the juice began to run out of the barrel joints because the hoops had not been tightened. The tools necessary to drive In the hoops were some distance away at the house, and it began to look as If the entire barrel of cider would be lost. But the pet hoop snakes took in the situation and two of them voluntarily surrounded the barrel and held It tight until the hired man came with the necessary tools. Bell told me that It was a custom of

the snakes In eider making time to Imbibe elder until they became frisky and then start to run races. They had a favorite course down a hill for some 200 yards and in returning always came back in hoop shape.