The Starkville news. (Starkville, Miss.) 1902-1960, 1905-04-14
Anna and
the Rather
By MRS. CORNELL

You Tell IN the pig tFOl SEt OoAuc hei o'
that beat you, Come here, l say!'
Willie did not accept the invitation.
A shrill whimpering was his sole re-
sponse Twelve-year-old Anna stepped
to the kitchen door, peering round the
sash. PAS scolding Willie" she an
nounced to her mothsc.
The storm continued TO rage in the
back yard.
.Shust look at your clothes! Go now!
To the creek wit you! Came not in the
house until you are cleaned Ach!"
Ex-Sea-Capt. Schulz, now prune-
grower in the mountain boundary west
of Santa Clara valley, turned in at the
kitchen door
Il don't know what to do wit the boy.
Go. mine Anna, get the lad clean shirt,
and take it down to the creek.
On Annals return from the bathing
pool she said softly to her mother:
willie isn't at the creek. Perhaps he
has run Off
80 child. don't bother me about Will
lie. He'll run back again fast enough
he's that scared of the mountains and
the trees"
Willie did not return all that long,
August day. The captain and his Amer
lean wife spread and dipped prunes
busily on the hot south slope. Inc
box laden wagon rolled by at intervals
Household duties went helter-skelter
under Annals management. At SIX
o'clock Mrs. Schulz, hot and tired,
wakened her lazy little daughter, out
stretched beneath the hollyhocks and
poppies in the small front garden.
For gracious sake Anna! Hurry!
You've not done the dinner dishes!'
Have the COWS Gomez" Anna asked.
resourcefully.
Land, If ] hadn't forgotten about
Willie, Come-hurry. You'll have to
go for the COWS. I'll wash the dishes
Anna felt quite in the mood to go for
the COWS. 1t meant an hour or so of pat
ting barefooted and bareheaded along
the soft dust of the road, or over the slip
pery brown grass of the mountain pas
lures, with tall pines on every hand and
a gold-5lue sky above.
She mused about the missing Willie.
Had he carried out his occasional threat
to run away?
"The road iss open go when you like, y
was b ,r fathers one reply to such futile
outbursts. But they we'll knew the road
was rot open to Willie. The six noun
tain miles intervening between their
ranch and the station formed an i'm
passable barrier to his timorous soul.
& guess he's afraid of the bigness of
things Anna concluded. 'And he's
got no call to run away. Papa threatens
him. but he's never laid hand on him yet.
s'pose it's on account of the bath he
ran away"
There was no Willie at the bathing
pool The checked gingham shirt fiut-
tered lonesomely where she had that
morning placed it.
Some minutes later. shutting de-
liciously among the Gappled leaves of
a hill trail, she sprang aside in quick
dismay.
"Goodressi" What had seemed to be
a bunch of dry leaves and grass coiled
swiftly, with the rafting whir that goes
straight to the fear center of the human
heart. In a fash Annals hands were full
of rocks. The first article in every Cali
fornia mountain child's education is to
destroy every rattlesnake that comes n
sight Anna lodged the first strike Of
the snake and before he could get near
er she began fusillade of such efficien- u
CIV that the reptile enemy sought re-
treat
Then Anna was privileged to witness
a strange thing-a very strange thing;
so unusual in fact that when reported
to the head of the geological department
of the state university that conserva-
tive gentleman would have given the
story little credence had it not been for
the unimpeachable authority of a cele-
brated naturalist, who has reported it as
occasionally occurring among the large,
much to be- dreaded species of the east
ern states-the Crotalus horridus, or
banded rattler.
To Annals unutterable surprise. the
snake turned for refuge to a nearby
oak tree Perhaps he came against it
unintentionally as the rattlesnake sees
badly by daylight. At any rate, he reared
his head against it much as he would
have done in ascending the side of a
sunny bowlder in the early days of his
chilled awakening from his winte-
sleep.
He writhed spir1ily but slowly up its