The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1875-07-15
BUNKING WITH SERPENTS.
A Child Wanders from Home, and Is Found
Three Days After in a Den of Rattle
suaIas

WITH
A Child Wanders from Home and is Found
Three Days After in a Den of Rattle
snakes.
In Blooming Grove, Pike county, lives
the family of a man named Chas. Dun
ming, consisting of himself, his wife, and
three children aged six, four, and two
and a half years. On Monday of last
week the children went out to play in
the fields. After being absent some
time the two oldest returned weeping to
the house and said they had lost their
little brother in the woods. Mrs. Dun
ming, thinking she could find the child
without difficulty, went out into the
woods and looked for some distance
around, calling him by name. Being
unable to discover any trace of him she
became alarmed and hastened back to
the village and spread the news of the
child's loss. Blooming Grove is COM
posed mainly of the dwellings of the
employees Of Jacob Klienhan's tannery,
and when the news of the little boy'sloss
became general the greatest excitement
prevailed. Business was stopped at the
tannery, and forty men started to scour
the woods in search of the child. ALI
the rest of the daythey tramped through
the woods without finding any trace of
the missing little one, and all night pine
torches flashed through the forest %aisles,
frightening from their perches myriads
of night birds, which answered with
their shrill cries the shouts of the men
calling to the child. During the nights
catamount was shot, but the morning
dawned upon an unsuccessful party of
sad-hearted villagers. After q short rest
the hunt was again commenced, and all
day Tuesday and all Tuesday night was
prosecuted diligently, but with no better
result. The opinion now was general
that the child had been killed and eaten
by wild beasts, which still haunt the
Pike county wilderness.
The search was continued, however, at
the urgent appeal of the mother of the
boy. Toward noon ON Wednesday one
of the party started away in q direction
which had not been investigated as yet.
Passing about q hundred yards through
a laurel swamp two miles from the vii
lage, he came out in an open space about
thirty feet square. The opening was
walled in on every side by a thick growth
of laurel, and was well filled with large
rocks marked with c~revices and large
seams, resembling an abandoned quarry.
The instant the man stepped into the
place, he was startled by the sound of a
rattlesnake, giving him warning to pause.
Looking down, he saw the snake cooled
up, about four feet away, in readiness to
spring at the first provocation. The
backwoodsman had seen such things be-
fore, and, picking up a club, dispatched
the snake at one blow. He was not pre-
pared for the developments that fol
lowed, however. CHANGING about him,
he made the unpleasant discovery that
he had intruded in a place pre-empted
by a colony of r~attlesnakes !; in short, he
was in q den of deadly reptiles. From
crevices and creases on the rocks and on
the ground he saw numbers of them ly-
ing in various positions, bathing their
SLIM proportions in the sunshine. The
man made up his mind that the place
had no particular charm for him, and
was about to beat a hasty retreat, when
his eyes fell on q scene that transfxed
him with horror.
On q low flat rock, not more than Sly
feet from where the man stood, lay the
apparently lifeless form of the little boy
they had been looking for so long
Stretched by his side, not more thar
three inches away from him, was a huge
| rattlesnake, while near his feet two more
lay coiled up, all evidently undisturbei
by the presence of the child. While the
T: man did not suppose for an instant tina
the boy was alive, he determined to res
cue the body from SO horrible a sepul
I cher, and with well-directed blows from
5 his club killed the three snakes That hel(
7 possession of the child. Every blow wa
> responded to by the b~lood-curdling din
: of rattles from the snakes that lay nea
the rock. While he was examining tn,
ground between him and the child to Sc,
) if any of the reptiles lay on that side, h,
was startled to see the supposed dead in
: FAINT rise with an effort to a sitting posi-
ton, stare wildly about with q crazed
!, haggard look, and then sink back upol
the rock. The next instant the stout
hearted woodmau had sprung upon tn
9 rock, and Selling the child bore hin
Il away quickly from the loathesome den
and in a few minutes placed him in til
:, arms of his distracted mother, amid tn
> general rejoicing of the whole village
9 The child was unconscious, and is ye
I lying in a critical condition, being delir
e Gus with fever brought on by the III
: paralleled hardship and p%rivation b
suffered in his three days wanderin
G alone in the forest before which th
u stout-hearted hunter would have quailet
Port JerUis On. " Union.