“Are the others really harmless, Mother?”
“Harmless to fawns. That is, they have no poison bite. Snakes do a lot of good, eating pests.”
“But I don’t like snakes,” insisted the tinier fawn.
“Well, neither does Mother. But it’s so silly, children, to be afraid. Where is that garter snake? Gone, to be sure! And even the rattler only strikes because he thinks you are going to kill him.”
The fawns were very thoughtful after that. “Mother,” they finally bleated, “Seems as if even the meanest creatures in the woods had some use.”
“That’s right,” their mother answered them.
————
