Instrument Proves Incubator For Rattlers-Followers of a Superstitious Theory Almost Create Panic at Church Concert.
    Residents of Sparrow Bush, four miles from Port Jervis, N. J., got the inside facts from Gene Tisdell why he dropped his fiddle at the church concert in Lifting Rocks just as he was about to play “Pop Goes the Weasel,’ with variations.
    Gene was noted for his veracity. He is also famous as a fiddler, and his conduct at the concert caused a local sensation. He tells it thus; In the days when he first scraped a hog his teacher was a superstitious Frenchman, who confided to him that if the rattles of a rattlesnake were placed in a violin the instrument would surrender its sweetest harmonies. Gene says he recalled the advice three weeks ago when he killed a snake with sixteen rattles after a hard fight.
    He tucked the rattles in his violin and did not take up the instrument again until he started for Lifting Rocks.
    He saluted the audience and drew his bow across the E string. Simultaneously, with a discordant squeak, the instrument squirmed in his hand, and he dropped it in terror. The audience saw him reach for it and retreat to the vestry room.
    ‘I tipped up the old bandbox,” Gene reported, “and what do you suppose I discovered? It was packed with young rattlesnakes. They hatched out of the rattles; that’s what they did.”
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