I asked Uncle Ned what makes the rattler have rattles, and he said: “Johnny, he doesnt. That is a optical delusion due to idleness in the observer. What they mistake for rattles is the last joints of the spine of his back bone, and it come about this way. The rattler he was created so ugly that it strangled him for to look at his self, and when he drew near any thing for to be sociable it fled amain. Well, one day in the Garden of Eden, he shedded his skin like all snakes had been told to do, and a other snake it shedded its skin too. So the rattler he backed into the other snakes skin for to hide his ugly, but it was too short, so the rattler bit off a inch or two and let a few joints of the spine of his back stick out, and they rattle when he shakes with fright, which is frequent. What scares him the worst is when a boy is about to step on him with bare feets. Johnny, you should be kind to the poor rattler and not step on it if there is plenty of room. “And now, my lad, I will tell you about a feller which drinked whiskey, which is equal bad. Me and the feller and a doctor was a campin in the forest, and the doctor had brought along a jug of whisky for to cure snake bites. One day him and me went out for to shoot bears, and when we come home to camp the feller he was lyin down in the tent, so dead drunk that he didn’t know a thing and was to the point of death! Johnny, it is awful to see a drinkard when he is himself, so I tore my hair and bewailed loud and shrill, but the doctor he sat down for to think, and bime be he said: ‘I got it, I got it!’ “Then he rushed away into the jingle, and pretty soon he come back with a rattler in the end of a long split stick, which he poked at the feller and it bit him many a time and oft. Johnny, it sounds like a mystery, and I wouldn’t ask you to believe it if I didnt tell it myself, but them snake bites they beat the fell intent of that whisky, for the feller he sprang up and evanished into the bosky fastness, and is now holdin a office of trust and profit in Kansas.” I asked Uncle Ned what became of the rattler, and he said, Uncle Ned did: “Thats a mighty sad story, Johnny, and I don’t like to dwell up on it. We took the snake outside the tent and let it go, and the first thing it done was to tie itself in a double bow knot and stick the ends through. Then it raveled it self out, and stood on its head, and waved its tail in air, and said it was the Queen of Sheby.” Injins eats snakes, but give me a pie, with lots of spice, and a apple dumplin, and some stewed squash, and plenty spunge cake, and a lot of sossage, and some more spunge cake, and some pickles, and all I can eat of chicken gizards, which is the stuff of life! FROGS