Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1909 — Grandmother’s Two Fads. [ARTICLE]

Grandmother’s Two Fads.

“My grandmother,” said the man who was raised on the farm, “was a woman of great determination. One day she was showing grandfather and me how to seize hornets and smash in their skulls between the thumb and forefinger before they could sting—a little trick In which the old lady took great pride. She picked the yellow bhzzer off the window shade; the usual faint crushing sound was heard, and the old lady smilingly held the dead body up for our approval. We showed proper admiration for the feat, but still regretfully preferred to slap the little fiends with a board. Not till several days afterward did we notice the swollen finger and discover that the hornet, by some sort of devilish ingenuity, had managed to sting grandmother. “She also used to cut up with a hoe all the snakes she could find and feed them to the chickens. Snake meat, especially milk snakes, gave the chicken a peculiarly fine flavor, she asserted. No one could contradict this theory, as the fine flavor was there every Thanksgiving day to prove it.”—New York Sun.