er
flight, so amazed was she at the sight of Aunt Maria in tears huddled in
the corner and shaking as if with ague.

"Why, Aunt Maria, what is the matter?" she cried in scared tones,
pausing just inside the door. "Are you hurt? Did the cat go mad? Were
you ironing and the board tipped over?" She stooped to lift the heavy
piece off the floor, and the woman suddenly found her tongue: "Don't
touch it, don't touch it! There's a snake under it! Oh, oh, oh!"

"Are you bitten, Aunt Maria? Tell me, are you bitten?"

"Oh, that snake!"

"Shall I get the doctor?"

"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 befo