Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1909-07-01

My Cousin Orone McDooble of Betz-
vile had a narrow escape from death
last Wednesday night, and he might
be dead now, if it hadn't been for his
Quickness Of mind, and his knowledge
of natural history. My Cousin Orone
had been spending a few hours at Slug
Wilson'S Palace bar in this village, and
about one o'clock in the morning he
started for home, and something in
the sort of sinuous way he was wan
dering up the street made him think of
snakes. Perhaps he had had snakes in
mind before that; | don't know. Any
way, when he reached home he had
his mind pretty full of snakes and cells
and lizards and reptiles and serpents
generally, and was feeling mighty wor-
ried about them, and thinking that
something ought to be done about it
for the good Of the public, and just
then he heard his chickens squawking
in the hen house, and it came to his
mind that there might be a beacon
strictor or a python eating his best
poultry that very minute. So he start
ed down the side path to his hen house
on a run.
Just as he got halfway there and
was passing under the apple tree at
full trot, a great big serpent swung
down out of the tree and darted at
him. 1t missed his face by an inch,
but its long cold body struck him
across the cheek, and Cousin Orone
McDooble fell like a shot,
The next morning he found that it
was only the rubber garden hose,
which his wife had draped over the
limb to dry, but he didn't have the
slightest suspicion of it as he lay I'M
der the tree, and he had a right to
be scared. Anybody would be scared
to have a slithy garden hose swinging
just above his head that way, ready
any minute to drop down and bite.
Nothing is so venomou as the bite
of a garden-hose at one o'clock in the
morning.
Then suddenly a cold chill passed
over him. He realized that the gar
den-hose was trying to fascinate him
with it's ~glittering eye, as serpents al
ways fascinate birds they mean to de-
your in n minute or two. He tried to
take his eyes away, and he couldn't;
and he tried to lutter his wings, and
he couldn't; and so he just uttered a
couple of mournful little chirps and
peeps and kept gazing at the cruel noz-
zle of the garden-hose, and hoped death
would be painless when the garden
hose swallowed him. But he couldn't
bear it. 1t got on his nerves. He
wept when he thought that he was
nothing but a poor little sparrow so
near his doom, and when he saw he
didn't have the slightest chance against
the willy serpent he thought he'd bet
ter be an ostrich, rather than a spar
row, for he would have a better chance
in a fight for life. So he squawked
as near like an ostrich as he could,
and stuck his head in a water pail
that was handy, as ostriches always
hide their heads when danger threat
ems. Every little while he peeked out
to see if the serpent had gone away,
but 1t hadn't. There it hung with its
glittering eye on him every time.
If 1t hadn't been for Cousin Orone
McDooble's knowledge of natural his
tory he would have been devoured by
the garden-hose long before that, but
knowing about ostriches, and turning
into one, had postponed his death, be-
cause a g%arden-hose has to swell up
considerably before 1t can swallow an
ostrich. And just then was when
Cousin McDooble's natural history
knowledge came to his aid, for the
memory of the East Indian mongoose
returned to his mind. He knew that
the mongoose is kept as a pet by many
Hindoos to kill serpents, and that very
minute he decided that the best thing
he could do was to be a mongoose. So
he did.
The only thing that troubled him
was that he didn't know what a mon
goose looked like or how it acted OF
what kind Of a noise 1t made. He
couldn't, to save his life, remember
whether It was a bird or a beast, but
he was pretty sure IL wasn't a fish,