There are few childhood fears more universal than the belief that something is hiding in the bed.
The five-year-old son of Mrs. Nannie Cannon woke in the night insisting that a snake was in his bed. His mother, believing he had only frightened himself with a dream, scolded him and told him to go back to sleep. Again and again through the night, the child cried and sobbed in fear, and again and again his warnings were brushed aside.
Only at daybreak did Mrs. Cannon finally pull back the covers. There, coiled beside her sleeping child, was a large black snake, said to be about five feet long.
The boy was unharmed, but the snake escaped into the garret before it could be killed. After that, the family was left with a far worse problem than one frightening night: somewhere in the house, the snake was still hiding.
Finds Big Snake In Bed
The little five-year-old son of Mrs. Nannie Cannon, residing at Limestone, East Tennessee, woke at ten o’clock in the night and told his mother that a snake was in his bed. The mother, regarding it as only a fancy of the child, due probably to dreaming, scoldingly insisted that the little fellow should be quiet and go back to sleep.
Sobbing with fear, the little fellow soon became quiet, but in a short while his mother was again aroused by the cries of the child, who insisted that a snake was in the bed. The mother was still unwilling to believe that it was anything more than a fancy,, and vehemently scolded the child until he again became quiet.
At intervals through the night she was aroused by the sobbing of the child, whose fear had thrown him into a state of terror. The mother still had no faith in the story, and the night wore away without an investigation.
At daybreak, when Mrs. Cannon arose to go about her household duties, remembering the fretting of the little boy during the night, she turned the cover down where the child lay asleep, and there, coiled up beside the youth, lay an unusually large black snake, about five feet in length.
Seizing her boy, the mother lifted him from the bed. The disturbance aroused the snake, and before Mrs. Cannon could find any instrument suitable to kill the reptile with, it had left the bed which was in an upstairs chamber, and crawled up the wall into the garret. The snake has not been seen since, and the family have been in nightly dread of the reptile.
The child was not in any way injured by the snake.
Source: The Virginia Enterprise. Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn. August 5, 1904.
