“Why, they’re—they’re just insects, aren’t they? Not even dogs should eat them,” and she urged Prince away from the snake.
The muscles of the “insect” still twitched, and its tail snapped about. Prince had his doubts as to whether it was really dead or was “playing possum.”
“Is it true, Uncle Joe,” Carolyn May asked, “that snakes can’t really die till the sun goes down? You see, it still wiggles. Do—do you s’pose it’s suffering?”
“I guess Prince fixed Mr. Snake, all right, at the first bite,” returned Mr. Stagg. “He’s dead. That old idea about the critters holding the spark of life till after sunset is just a superstition. We can safely call that fellow dead and leave him.”
Joseph Stagg and the little girl went on across the stepping-stones, while Prince splashed through the water. Carolyn May was thinking about Miss Amanda Parlow, and she believed her Uncle Joe was, too.
“Uncle Joe,” she said, “would that bad old snake have stung Miss Amanda?”
“Huh? No; I reckon not,” admitted Mr. Stagg absent-mindedly. “Blacksnakes don’t bite. A big one like that can squeeze some.”
“But you were scared of it—like me and Prince. And for Miss Amanda,” said Carolyn May, very much in earnest.
“I guess ’most everybody is scared by the sight of a snake, Car’lyn May.”
“But you were scared for Miss Amanda’s sake—just the same as I was,” repeated the little girl decidedly.