It took me just half a minute to get to my feet, into that other room, and that baby in my arms, as awful to look at as it was. Of course it seemed as if God was honoring me by crowding works on my new faith pretty closely, and how I got through with such credit I don’t see; but I did.
“You’ll have to show me just what to do; I never touched a baby before, but I will try to help,” I said to Gabriel, who was looking at me in an absolute astonishment and devout thankfulness that encouraged my new-found capableness.
“A woman, thank God!” I heard him mutter before he spoke.
“Tip him on your arm, hold his head close against your breast, with your finger down his throat, while I pour in this hot water; then turn him over on your knee quick when it is about to come up. He is full of fried potatoes, and that is what is making the spasms. I’ll hold his legs with my left hand, so he can’t kick away from you. We must get down enough of this water to bring up all of the potatoes.”
Gabriel’s voice was quick and respectful, as if he were speaking to somebody that had as much intellect and manual training as himself. I suppose that is what helped me through with those dreadful hours of time that it took to work up that awful potato—that and the positive way I said:
“Now, God, help me, please, and quick!”
At last it all came forth, and I don’t suppose it really was hours; but the baby was apparently done for.
“No use, Leader; his time have come. She’s buried five out thar in the clearing at jest about his age. Let the little critter go in peace,” said Stivers, who had come in through the back door. His rough voice had a note of suffering in it, though he lit his pipe by a coal from the fire calmly enough.
But at the mention of the five little graves out in that awful night, the poor woman on the floor groveled up on to her knees and caught at my skirts.
“God help you!” said Gabriel, gently, to her. “He’s rid of the poison, but so collapsed that there seems nothing more to do.”