The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1905-05-05

a shrill whimpering was his sole re-
Spouse. Twelve-year-old Anna stepped
to the kitchen door, peeping round the
sash. PAS scolding Willie" she an
nQunced to her mother.
The storm continued to rage in the
back yard.
"Shust look at your clothes! Go now!
To the creek wit you'll Come not in
the house until you are cleaned. Achw
Ex-Sea-Captain 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 Anna's 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"
Anna was conscious of an under
current Of sympathy with the forlorn
wait her father had brought from the
city some months before. The very
love and awe with which the noun
tains filled her imaginative soul gave
her comprehension of the fear with
which they imbued the dulI-witted off
spring of San Francisco cutters.
Willie did not return all that long
August day. The captain and his
American wife spread and dipped
The box-laden wagon rolled by at in
tervals. Household duties went heller
SHELTER under Annals management. At
6 o'clock Mrs. Schulz. hot and tired,
Weakened her lazy little daughter, out
stretched beneath the hol!yhocks and
peoples in the small front garden.
"For gracious sake, Anna! Hurry!
You've not done the dinner dishesw
"Have the cows Gomez" Anna asked,
resourcefully.
Land! If l 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. It meant an hour or so of !
patting barefooted and bareheaded |
along the soft dust of the road, or over |
the slippery brown grass OF the noun |
tain pastures, with tall pines on every |
hand, and a gold-blue sky above.
She unused about the missing Willie. |
h. h to- ctN mol
threat to run away2
"The road iss open, go when you |
like" was her fathers one reply to |
such futile outbursts. But they well
knew the road was not open to Willie.
The six mountain miles intervening
between their ranch and the station
formed an impossible barrier to his
timorous soul.
II guess he's afraid of the bigness of
things. Anna concluded. "And he's
got no call to run away. Papa threat
ems him, but he's never laid hands on
him yet. 1 s'pose it's on account of the
bath he ran away"
There was no Willie at the bathing
pool. The checked Bingham shirt flut-
tered lonesomely where she had that
morning placed it.
Some minutes later, shutting delic-
iously among the dappled leaves Of a
hill trail, she sprang aside in quick
dismay.
"Goodnessw What had seemed to be
a bunch of dry leaves and grass coiled
swiftly, with the rafting whir that
goes straight to the fear centre of the
human heart. In a flash Annals hands
were full of rocks. The first article
In every California mountain child's
education is to destroy every rattle
snake that comes in sight. Anna
lodged the first strike of the snake,
and before he could get nearer she be-
gan a fusillade Of such efficiency that
the reptile enemy sought retreat.
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 depart
ment Of the State University that con-
servative gentleman would have given
the story little credence had it not been
Tor the unlmpedcHdUIe authority VI
celebrated naturalist, who had reported
It as occasionally occurring among the
large, much-to-be-dreaded species of
the Eastern States-the Crotalus horri-
dus, or banded RATHER.
To Annals unutterable surprise, the
snake turned for refuge to a nearby
oak tree. Perhaps he came against it
Internationally, 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 boulder in the early days
of his chilled awakening from his win
ter sleep.
BE writhed spirally but slowly up
It's rough trunk. which seemed from