Verify or Debunk A Family Legend

  
   My mother takes great pride in her family and the stories that were passed down from her great grandfather to her mother and ultimately to her.  One such story piqued my interest ever since she told  it to me when I was young.  This story sounds like it could be a tall tale at first, but give it a thorough listen.  My great-great grandfather, Howard Pomeroy, thirty-five at the time, lived in Haydenville Massachusetts on a farm with his wife and three kids.  This particular event took place circa 1875. The farm had been blasted by the harsh winter; everything was frozen.  While out tending to the cows and gathering milk, he decided to gather some wood for the wood-burning stove cooking their stew and for heating the house.  He gathered the sticks like he normally would and took them back to the house.  Upon throwing the sticks into and around the fire he noticed that one stick started to move.  To his astonishment what he thought was a stick was in fact a snake. The snake started to reanimate from his cryogenic slumber. Upon realizing the stick was a snake he swiftly dispatched of it with an axe.  It turns out that this may not just be a tall-tale and in fact, most certainly is the truth.  Vertebrates such as: snakes, turtles and frogs can protect their internal organs in the event of becoming frozen.  Science backs up the plausibility of my great-great grandfather’s account of what happened that day.