Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1902 — Rattler is Changing Clothes. [ARTICLE]

Rattler is Changing Clothes.

The big rattlesnake at the school house has concluded that spring has come for sure, and is getting himself, or herself, into a new spring suit. A snake reverses the old rule of putting off the old before putting on the new suit, and first gets the new suit and 'then takes off the old one. This old reptile, which we suspect is a female, because it gets so badly out of temper while its new clothes are being fitted, evidently has the whole new suit on, but is having trouble in getting the old one off. The new suit so far as it yet shows, is very bright and handsome, and evidently cut after the latest fashion in snakedom. The snake is bad tempered enough to suggest a misfit somewhere in the new skin, but none is yet apparent to the observers. The new skin being evidently a perfect fit.