The Silver State

The Desmoines (Iowa) correspondent of the Chicago Tribune says: A remarkable incident occurred near Viroqua, a few days ago, in a family whose name my informant could not remember. There were three little children, the oldest being five years, two of whom went to the barn to find hens' nests. They found one, and crawled to it, and one of them thrust his hand forward to get the eggs, when he quickly withdrew it, saying the old hen had bitten him. The other said he wasn't afraid, and thrust his hand forward, when he too was bitten. Both then screamed, which quickly brought their mother to the spot, when it was discovered that they had been struck by a rattlesnake coiled in the nest. The mother seized the little boys in her arms and hastened to the house, where a new horror met her gaze. In her haste to secure the boys at the barn she had set down a boiler of hot water, into which the babe had fallen. In thirty minutes all her children were dead.