"Oh, that snake!"
"Oh, that snake!"
Leaping across the board still pinning the reptile to the floor—dead or alive she did not know—Tabitha clutched the hysterical woman by the shoulder and shook her, demanding, "Tell me this minute if you are hurt!"
But Aunt Maria continued her incoherent cries, still rocking back and forth in her corner, too dazed to make any further explanations. Tabitha surveyed the scene in perplexity. What should she do? The Carsons were away from home and no one else near enough to summon to her aid. If the snake had bitten her aunt, something must be done at once. All the remedies for poisonous bites that she had ever heard of seemed to have slipped from her memory. It might be too late by the time a doctor could be called. Precious seconds were rapidly passing. Supposing the snake were not dead yet. She glanced at the board in the middle of the floor and fancied it moved. In desperation she seized the teakettle from the stove and let its scalding contents fly over the spot where the snake might be.
At that instant her eyes fell upon the flask her father carried on his trips among the mountains, and she remembered in a flash that whiskey is a good antidote for rattlesnake bites. This might not be a rattlesnake and it might not even be a poisonous one, but she would take no chances. Snatching off the cap, she poured a stream of the fiery liquid into the woman's open mouth, nearly strangling her. Choking and spluttering, Aunt Maria tried to scream, but could only gasp for breath, and to Tabitha's frightened eyes her face took on a dying look. A pail of water stood on the stand under the faucet, and catching up this, the child deluged the convulsed form in the corner.
There was a sharp in-drawing of breath, a sound of mingled surprise and wrath, and the irate aunt towered above the astonished girl, her eyes blazing as Tabitha had never seen them before.
"Tabitha Catt!" she managed to articulate, "of all outrageous things I ever heard tell of in my life! What do you think you are doing? Trying to murder me? Haven't I had enough scares this morning without your burning the skin all off my mouth and throat and choking me half to death and then trying to drown me? What do you mean by it, I say?"
"Oh, Aunt Maria, are you bit?"
"Bit, bit, bit, did you say? Yes, bit by that fire you poured into me. What did you think bit me?" She had forgotten all about the snake! And Tabitha had difficulty in explaining the situation to her.