natural revulsion from them; more than from any other creature. I 
     
     do not think we had any rattlesnakes but those we had were bad 
     
     enough. We had to keep a sharp lookout for them all about the place. 
     
    
   
   
    
     How 4 Snake Changes Hi5 Clot/7e; 
     
    
   
   
    
     In the springtime a snake casts off his old winter suit and has a 
     
     beautiful shiny new one for summer. He takes off his old suit like a 
     
     boy takes off his shirt, only in place of pulling it off over his head, 
     
     he pushes himself out of it head first. I often found the old skins—- 
     
     sloughs—and sometimes found the snake with his new one on. He seem- 
     
     ed to be very sensitive to the cold and the rough ground, like a boy’s 
     
     feet when he first takes off his boots in spring and tries to run-bare- 
     
     foot. On dull days the mosquitoes and sand flies and, what the Indians 
     
     called "bitem no see’em,” were almost unendurable. My brother 
     
     Johnny and I went to this farm one day to cut some hay. Mother had 
     
     put us up lunch in a nice pillowslip. The flies were so vicious we 
     
     could not endure them; but we did not want to go home until we fin- 
     
     ished our work. At last we got desperate and cut holes in the pillow- 
     
     slip and made a mask of it. We took turns wearing this; it was good 
     
     protection. When we got home mother discovered what we did to her 
     
     nice pillowslip. She was wise and patient with us and always shielded 
     
     us, when we exposed ourselves to trouble by such innocent tricks. She 
     
     could see by our swollen faces that we had suffered greatly from fly 
     
     bites. This farm was a great place for rabbits, we often caught the 
     
     little ones; they were sleepy innocent little things; we tried to make 
     
     pets of them but seldom succeded. There was a family living near our 
     
     place; the boy often captured young bears and foxes. He had some 
     
     wild animal in captivity nearly every summer. He usually sold them 
     
     and made a little money that way. We were always anxious for a trip 
     
     to that farm although it was such an infested place. There was a 
     
     strange fascination about its isolation and wildness. We were al- 
     
     ways on the lookout for wild animals or birds on our trips to that 
     
    
   
   
    
     farm. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The H omely Toad 
     
    
   
   
    
     A toad is homely in two respects, he is not pretty—not so pretty 
     
     as a frog—and he is very home-loving; he will remain in. one locality 
     
    
   
   
    
     63