“Wasn’t she good to give me these moccasins?” said Beverly, stroking the silvery skins thoughtfully. “I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to give them to Anne? But I can loan them to her while I’m here. I don’t want them. We don’t use such warm things in Virginia. They are meant for you cold-blooded Northerners.”
“They have plenty of moccasins further south, if you don’t have them in Virginia, Beverly,” said Nancy with a twinkle. “I’ve never been in your famous State, but I know Florida a little. And I had a funny time there once with a famous naturalist, about a moccasin. I don’t think I ought to tell his name, he is so very famous!”
“Let’s hear the story, and perhaps we can guess,” said Beverly.
“Was it when you were at that wonderful house-party with Tante?” asked Cicely. “Tell us about it, Nancy.”
“Yes,” said Nancy chuckling. “You see, this famous naturalist was visiting there too; and the boys and girls loved to tease the old dear, who was awfully nice to us and didn’t seem to mind our jokes a bit. He was just crazy to see a moccasin-snake—that’s the very poisonous and very dangerous kind, you know. He wanted to put him in a book.”
“Ugh!” shivered Gilda, much as old Sal might have done. “Put um in a book? What for zere, Nancy? I zink, in a trap is better!”
“Zey are safe in a book,” laughed Nancy, imitating Gilda’s accent. “But not when zey crawl in ze grass, and squish in ze mud, and drop wiggling off ze trees!”
“Stop, Nancy!” shrieked the girls in chorus.
Nancy went on with the tale. “Uncle John had the worst luck! We boys and girls had all managed to see a moccasin somewhere. But though he got up early and kept awake late, hunting along the river and in under the live oaks, never a moccasin did he see.
“Well, we were kind children; and we put our heads together to get the old man what he wanted. He must see that moccasin! So we fixed up a nice little scene for him. I went up to my bedroom and got one of my Indian moccasins—maybe Sal Seguin had made it. Anyway, I had brought it from here. It was a New England moccasin. And it was brownish, with grey fur around its neck. After dinner Jack—he was one of the boys—took the thing down to the river bank and planted it under a bush, pinning it down with a forked stick, the way they catch snakes. Then two of us girls joined him carelessly. For we saw Uncle John sitting on the piazza worrying because he hadn’t yet seen any moccasin. Pretty soon both of us began to scream. Ethel ran away as if she were frightened to death, and I raced up to the house calling ‘Uncle John! Uncle John! Oh, do come quick and see the moccasin! Jack has him pinned down. He’s quite safe. Quick!’