This is a modern stage adaptation of an important story originally published in the late 19th century.
The story takes place in Australia where a fatherless family lives, a mother with her four children. They live in poverty in a hut in the bush. One day, a child screams about a snake, and the mother tries to find it, but the snake escapes to a pile of felled apple trees. The venomous serpent bites the dog. They lure it out, but to no avail. The threat is severe; if the snake enters their hut at night, it will likely mean the death of one of the family members.
The family grows increasingly paranoid as they defend themselves against the entry of the snake. The woman becomes paranoid about noises, and the daughter, Jacky, is paranoid about Tommy's club, which he wields in case of the snake. The dog senses the snake during a windy night, and the woman reflects in monologue about her life, about the death of her brother-in-law to a snake bit. Lately, the farm has dried up and the family doesn't have enough to make ends meet. She wonders if maybe she needs to take her family and escape to a new home.
We learn that she has miscarried a child in an illness, because she was too far from medical help. The threats of grassfires and windstorms add to their situation. We learn that once, a ruptured dam took the life of her husband who was working in the basin below. Try as she might to save him, she could not. She wonders if she just doesn't have what it takes as a woman to protect her family. She mourns her situation bitterly. In the morning, she pokes her eye with a blessed handkerchief, and the snake emerges. She works with the dog to kill it, and she saves her family.
