Horace and his family lived in a small house in the cotton patch beside the fence row. Patsy, our niece, was the most important person in that house hold for Bobbie and me. She was just a few months younger than Bobbie and was like another sister to us. We did everything together and had made plans to go dewberry picking together.
Early Saturday morning, Bobbie and I thought we saw Patsy step off her front porch and head toward the fence row. And was that a bucket in her hand? Bobbie and I raced up stairs to get a better look. Sure enough. There she was, picking berries on the back side of the fence row. Was she trying to hide? At any rate, she had a head start! Anger and indignation welled up in us. “How could she? She’d surely get them all before we could get down there.”
Suddenly we saw Patsy running toward her house. She rounded the end of the fence row, tossed the bucket of berries toward the front steps of her house and without breaking speed headed toward our house. “I’ve got to get to Mammie.” She yelled! Mama, Mammie to her, could fix anything.
“Oh No!” Bobbie and I shouted together. “Patsy is snake bit!” All hard feelings rapidly melted away.
We raced down the stairs and to Patsy as fast as we could. We lifted her, Bobbie on one side, me on the other and carried her to the front porch of the house on the hill. Mama sensing the problem yelled to Ray, working under the mulberry trees on the latest broken thing, to go get Horace.
Ray jumped in the truck and took off to the bottom land where Horace was breaking ground. He ignored the well- traveled road and took a short cut through the field. The old truck was doing its best, rocking back and forth as it cleared mounds of dirt and cotton rows. The side slats on its bed separating and slapping each other as the bed rose and fell.
Meantime, ama grabbed a chicken, a pullet that was not quite big enough to eat, rung its neck to kill it, cut it open and pushed Patsy’s hand, the location of the bite, into its warm innards.
I was in the fourth or fifth grade at the time and had been studying first-aid. We had recently covered what to do in case of snake bite. As soon as Patsy was in Mama’s hands, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a rusty paring knife. I was so thankful the lesson on snake bites was fresh in my memory. I hurried to Patsy ready to cut the fang marks and suck out the poisonous blood.
Mama and Patsy rejected that idea but that did not deter my frantic insistence. Horace arrived in record time. He picked up Patsy, stuffed her in the car and they were off as fast as his 38 Chevy would go, stirring up a cloud of dust and throwing gravel. The nearest doctor was eight miles away in Sikeston.
“Do I keep the chicken?” Patsy asked. Horace grabbed the chicken and threw it out the car window somewhere between the house on the hill and the Matthews junction.
Patsy survived the snake bite, just a little swelling. But, I think that concluded the berry picking for that season and cancelled the hopes of a berry cobbler.
