"Ada," said Marland very quietly, so quietly that his grandpapa, raking the gravel on the walk near by, did not hear, him, "there's a snake out here, and it is a rattlesnake. Keep very still and crawl right after me."
"Yes, Ada," he whispered, as he succeeded in squirming himself out and wriggling past the snake till he could stand upright. "There's room, but you mustn't make any noise!"
Five minutes later the two children sauntered slowly down the avenue, hand in hand.
"Grandpapa," said Marland, "there's a rattlesnake in there where Ada and I were; perhaps you'd better kill him!"
And when the snake had been killed, and papa for the hundredth time had folded his little boy in his arms and murmured, "My brave boy! my dear, brave little boy!" Marland looked up in surprise.
"Why, it wasn't I that killed the snake, papa! it was grandpapa! I didn't do anything; I only kept very still and ran away!"
But you see, in that case, keeping very still and running away was just the bravest thing the little fellow could have done; and I think his mamma—for I am his mamma, and so I know just how she did feel—felt when she took him in her arms that night that in her little boy's soul there was something of the stuff of which heroes are made.
MRS. ALICE WELLINGTON ROLLINS.
THE MYSTERY OF SPRING.
