Presently one raised himself
up and yawned. He meant well, but it was not the regular thing for an
ophidian to do at that season. By-and-by they began to poke their
heads up all round, nodding good morning to one another across the
room; and pretty soon one saw me lying there and called attention to
the fact. Then they all began to crowd to the front and hang out over
the sides of the beds in a fringe, to study my habits. I can't
describe the strange spectacle: you would have supposed it was the
middle of March and a forward season! There were more worms than I had
counted, and they were larger ones than I had thought. And the more
they got awake the wider they yawned, and the longer they stretched.
The fat fellows in the hammocks above me were in danger of toppling
out and breaking their necks every minute.
"Then it went through my mind like a flash what was the matter.
Finding it cold outside, Ben had made a roaring fire on the top of the
rock, and the heat had deceived the worms into the belief that it was
late spring. As I lay there and thought of a full-grown man who hadn't
any better sense than to do such a thing as _that_, I was mad enough
to kill him. I lost confidence in mankind. If I had not stopped up the
entrance before lying down, with a big round stone which the heat had
swollen so that a hydraulic ram couldn't have butted it loose, I
should have put on my clothes and gone straight home.
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