Teddy and
Janet knew this, and they had been taught by their father that these
harmless snakes did a great deal of good by eating rats and mice that,
otherwise, would spoil the farmers' grain.

So it was that Janet had learned to pick up even large black snakes,
knowing they would not harm her, and once she and her brother had even
tamed a good-sized black snake, so that it would let the children pick it
up, and it would lie, coiled, in their lap.

Snakes can not be tamed, or made to do tricks like other animals, and the
stories of "snake charmers" are mostly untrue. Some snakes may rise and
sway when music is played, and the snakes that circus performers handle
are just as harmless as the garden snakes you see. Some of the larger
ones, however, are very powerful, and can twist themselves around a
person or an animal strongly enough to kill. But the performers know how
to handle snakes, using slow and gentle movements, so the reptiles do not
mind it.

Thus it was that Janet had no fear of Slider, the pet alligator. She
lifted him up, put him on top of the slanting board and, just as he had
done before, Slider went sliding down.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Trouble in delight.

"Isn't that a good trick?" asked Janet, laughing with her little brother.
"Aren't you glad you stayed with me."

"Yes, I is glad," declared Trouble. "Now Trouble make Slider slide."

"All right," agreed Janet.

Baby William was not much more afraid of animals, snakes included, than
were Teddy and Janet. So his sister let him pick up Slider and give the
alligator another coast down the board hill.

I am not saying that Slider would have done this trick himself, even
after much practice. It was mostly an accident, I believe, his coasting
down the board when he got to the slanting edge. The alligator just
naturally crawled around and, reaching the edge, he fell over, and
coasted down. Janet and Trouble put him close to the edge on purpose, so
he would go down, knowing that it did not hurt the alligator in the
least. I suppose a mud turtle would have done the same "trick."

Reptiles have a very small brain, and can not be taught to do tricks as
can dogs, horses and cats, and the alligator, the turtle and the snake
belong to the class known as reptiles. So though the children called what
Slider did a "trick," it was more like an accident, though it was not a
harmful one.

"Me make Slider slide," exclaimed Trouble, and, surely enough, when he
had put