the bottom, I mixed up an ounce of the drug with molasses and
rolled it out into pills. Leaving the stuff to dry on the front porch, I
went into the house.

"Returning, I saw the last of my pills swallowed by my hen.

"Of course I thought her silly head would burst wide open. She simply
commenced cackling, and has been laying two eggs per day ever since. And
do you know, senator, those eggs are the best chill tonic on the market.
One of them taken internally will knock the spots from any case of malaria
in the State, and shaking ague can't stand before 'em an hour after they
are eaten. I keep that hen dosed; I do, and----"--_Memphis Commercial
Appeal._

A DISJOINTED NARRATIVE.

I have read with much interest the discussion about the joint snake, and
propose to give my experience with it. I have been familiar with the
"joint," or, as we call it here, the "hook-and-eye," snake since I was a
boy.

It is a snake of a brownish-yellow color, and grows to be about three feet
long, but at any stage of its growth it can be unjointed or unhooked. It
is fastened together by a hook-and-eye arrangement, exactly like those
used on ladies' dresses.

On one occasion while out taking a walk I saw a joint snake crawling
slowly along the top of an old stone wall; taking my cane, I gave it a
smart jerk about the middle of the body, and it immediately unhooked into
sixteen pieces, each about two inches long.

Taking the head part and putting it in my hat for safe keeping, I gathered
up the joints, and laying them along in a row in just the reverse order in
which they came apart, with all the eyes in contact, and also the hooks, I
took the head part out of my hat, and laid it alongside of the middle of
the row of joints.

It immediately began to move along the line, and without a moment's
hesitation backed up to the first joint, when a little snap was heard and
the first joint was hooked on. It repeated the process, and in the course
of sixty-five seconds by the watch it was again a complete snake.

Again catching it I took out the ninth joint and also the fourteenth, and
changed places with them, putting the ninth in place of the fourteenth and
then let the snake go on.

He gave one or two wriggles, but finding there was something wrong
commenced examining its joints from his head down, and when he came to the
ninth took it out and laid it on one side, then crawling along the rest of
his joints until he came to where the fourt