THE SWAMP DOCTOR'S ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH-WEST.
Containing The Whole Of The Louisiana Swamp Doctor; Streaks Of Squatter Life; And Far-Western Scenes; In A Series Of Forty-Two Humorous Southern And Western Sketches, Descriptive Of Incidents And Character.
By John Robb
(“Madison Tensas, M.D.,” and “Solitaire,”)
Author Of “Swallowing Oysters Alive,” Etc.
Illustrated by Darley.
1858
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TO
WM. S. PARHAM, and ALFRED J. LOWRY,
OF MADISON PARISH, LOUISIANA,
MY TRUE AND FAST FRIENDS,
THIS HUMBLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY THEIR FRIEND,
MADISON TENSAS, M. D.
CONTENTS
[ THE CITY PHYSICIAN versus THE SWAMP DOCTOR. ]
[ GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE MEDICINES. ]
[ A RATTLESNAKE ON A STEAMBOAT. ]
[ THE MISSISSIPPI PATENT PLAN FOR PULLING TEETH. ]
[ BEING EXAMINED FOR MY DEGREE. ]
[ THE “SWAMP DOCTOR” TO ESCULAPIUS. ]
[ MY FIRST CALL IN THE SWAMP. ]
[ THE MAN OF ARISTOCRATIC DISEASES. ]
[ THE INDEFATIGABLE BEAR-HUNTER. ]
[ STREAKS OF SQUATTER LIFE, AND FAR-WEST SCENES. ]
[ STREAKS OF SQUATTER LIFE, AND FAR-WEST SCENES. ]
[ THE WESTERN WANDERINGS OF A TYPO. ]
[ CHAPTER I. THE WAY HE WAS “BROUGHT UP.” ]
[ CHAPTER II. AN ADVENTURE AMONG THE OFFICIALS. ]
[ CHAPTER III. JOHN'S EDITORIAL CAREER. ]
[ CHAPTER IV. HIS WANDERINGS THROUGH THE PRAIRIES. ]
[ CHAPTER V. HIS ENCOUNTER WITH OLD FRIENDS. ]
[ “NOT A DROP MORE, MAJOR, UNLESS IT'S SWEETEN'D.” ]
[ NETTLE BOTTOM BALL; OR, BETSY JONES' TUMBLE IN THE MUSH PAN. ]
[ A “CAT” STORY, WHICH MUST NOT BE CUR-TAILED. ]
[ A SPIRITUAL SISTER, HER ENCOUNTER WITH A DOUBTFUL SMITH. ]
[ HOSS ALLEN'S APOLOGY; OR, THE CANDIDATE'S NIGHT IN A MUSQUITO SWAMP! ]
[ NATURAL ACTING! DAN MARBLE'S FIRST APPEARANCE AT GRAND RIVER, MICHIGAN. ]
[ THE STANDING CANDIDATE. HIS EXCUSE FOR BEING A BACHELOR. ]
[ AN EMIGRANT'S PERILS; OR, A FLYING TICKET ON THE MISSISSIPPI. ]
[ FUN WITH A “BAB.” A NIGHT ADVENTURE ON THE MISSOURI. ]
[ TELEGRAPHING AN EXPRESS. A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE IN THE AMERICAN BOTTOM. ]
[ THE PRE-EMPTION RIGHT; OR, DICK KELSY'S SIGNATURE TO HIS LAND CLAIM. ]
[ YALLEK PLEDGES; OR, THE FIGHT ABOUT SALLY SPILLMAN. ]
[ GEORGE MUNDAY, THE HATLESS PROPHET. ]
[ COURTING IN FRENCH HOLLOW. ]
[ THE SECOND ADVENT! TOM BANGALL, THE ENGINEER, AND MILLERISM. ]
[ SETTLEMENT FUN. BILL SAPPER'S LETTER TO HIS COUSIN. ]
[ “DOING” A LANDLORD. A STORY OF SHAPE AND TALENT. ]
[ WHO IS SIR GEORGE SIMPSON? AN EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE ABOUT HIM. ]
[ LETTERS FROM A BABY. BY A FORWARD CHILD. ]
[ SETH TINDER'S FIRST COURTSHIP, HOW HIS FLAME WAS QUENCHED! ]
[ THE DEATH STRUGGLE; OR, THE WAY SMITH DID UP JONES. ]
[ “WHO ARE THEY?” A QUESTION OF VITAL IMPORT. ]
THE CITY PHYSICIAN versus THE SWAMP DOCTOR.
The city physician, or the country doctor of an old-settled locality, with all the appliances of cultivated and refined life around them; possessing all the numberless conveniences and luxuries of the sick-room; capable of controlling the many adverse circumstances that exert such a pernicious influence upon successful practice; having at command the assistance, in critical and anomalous cases, of scientific and experienced coadjutors; the facilities of good roads; the advantages of comfortable dwellings, easy carriages, and the pleasures of commingling with a cultivated, mild, refined society, cannot fully realize and appreciate the condition of their less favoured, humble brethren, who, impelled by youthfulness, poverty, defective education, or the reckless spirit of adventure, have taken up their lot with society nearly in its primitive condition, and dispense the blessings of their profession to the inhabitants of a country, where the obscure bridle-path, the unbridged water-courses, the deadened forest trees, the ringing of the woodman's axe, the humble log cabin, the homespun dress, and all the many sober, hard realities of pioneer life, attest the youthfulness of the settlement.
The city physician may be of timorous nature and weak and effeminate constitution: the “swamp doctor,” whose midnight ride is often saluted by the scream of the panther, must be of courageous nature, and in physical endurance as hardy as one of his own grand alluvial oaks, whose canopy of leaves is many a night his only shelter.
The city physician may be of fastidious taste, and exquisiteness of feeling; the swamp doctor must have the unconcernedness of the dissecting-room, and be prepared to swallow his peck of dirt all at once.
The city physician must be of polished manners and courtly language: the swamp doctor finds the only use he has for bows, is to escape some impending one that threatens him with Absalomic fate; the only necessity for courtly expression, to induce some bellicose “squatter” to pay his bill in something besides hot curses and cold lead.
The city physician, fast anchored in the sublimity of scientific expression, requires a patient to “inflate his lungs to their utmost capacity;” the swamp doctor tells his to “draw a long breath, or swell your d—dest:” one calls an individual's physical peculiarities, “idiosyncrasy;” the other terms it “a fellow's nater.”
The city physician sends his prescriptions to the drug store, and gives himself no regard as to the purity of the medicine; each swamp doctor is his own pharmacien, and carries his drug store at the saddle.
The city physician rides in an easy carriage over well paved streets, and pays toll at the bridge; we mount a canoe, a pair of mud boots, sometimes a horse, and traverse, unmindful of exposure or danger, the sullen slough or angry river.
The city physician wears broadcloth, and looking in his hat reads, “Paris;” we adorn the outer man with homespun, and gazing at our graceful castors remember the identical hollow tree in which we caught the coon that forms its fair outline and symmetrical proportions.
The city physician goes to the opera or theatre, to relax, and while away a leisure evening. The swamp doctor resorts for the same purpose to a deer or bear hunt, a barbacue or bran dance, and generally ends by becoming perfectly hilarious, and evincing a determination to sit up in order that he can escort the young ladies home before breakfast.
The city physician, compelled to keep up appearances, deems a library of a hundred authors a moderate collection; the swamp doctor glories in the possession of “Gunn's Domestic Medicine,” and the “Mother's Guide.”
The city physician has a costly Parisian instrument for performing operations, and scorns to extract a tooth; the swamp doctor can rarely boast of a case of amputating instruments, and practises dentistry with a gum lancet and a pair of pullikens.
The city physician, with intellect refined, but feelings vitiated by the corruptings and heart-hardenings of modern polished society, views with utter indifference or affected sympathy the dissolution of body and soul in his patients: but think you, we can see depart unmoved those with whom we have endured privations, have been knit like brothers together by our mutual dangers; with whom we have hunted, fished, and shared the crust and lowly couch; with whom we have rejoiced and sorrowed; think you we can see them go down to the grave with tearless eyes, with unmoved soul? If we can, then blot out that expression so accordant with common sentiment, “God made the country, and man the town.”
The city physician sends the poor to the hospital, and eventually to the dissecting-room; we tend and furnish them gratuitously, and a proposal to dispose of them anatomically would, in all probability, put a knife into us.
One, with a sickly frame, anticipates old age; the other, with a vigorous constitution, knows that exposure and privation will cut him off ere his meridian be reached.
The city physician has soft hands, soft skin, and soft clothes: we have soft hearts but hard hands; we are rough in our phrases, but true in our natures; our words do not speak one language and our actions another; what we mean we say, what we say we mean; our characters, when not original, are impressed upon us by the people we practise among and associate with, for such is the character of the pioneers and pre-emptionists of the swamp.
To sum up the whole, the city physician lives at the top of the pot, the swamp doctor scarcely at the rim of the skillet: one is a delicate carpet, which none but the nicest kid can press; the other is a cypress floor, in which the hobnails of every clown can stamp their shape: one is the breast of a chicken, the other is a muscle-shell full of cat-fish: one is quinine, the other Peruvian bark: and so on in the scale of proportions.
I have contrasted the two through the busy, moving scenes of life; let me keep the curtain from descending awhile, till I draw the last and awful contrast.
Stand by the death-bed of the two, in that last and solemn hour, when disease has prescribed for the patient, and death, acting the pharmacien, is filling the R. In a close, suffocating room, horizontalized on a feather bed; if a bachelor, attended by a mercenary nurse; his departure eagerly desired by a host of expectant, envious competitors; with the noise of drays, the shouts of the busy multitude, and the many discordant cries of the city ringing through his frame, the soul of the city physician leaves its mortal tenement and wings its way to heaven through several floors and thicknesses of mortar and brick, whilst the sobs of his few true friends float on the air strangely mingled with “Pies all hot!”
“The last 'erald!” and “Five dollars reward, five dollars reward, for the lost child of a disconsolate family!”
The swamp doctor is gathered unto his fathers 'neath the greenwood tree, couched on the yielding grass, with the soft melody of birds, the melancholy cadence of the summer wind, the rippling of the stream, the sweet smell of flowers, and the blue sky above bending down as if to embrace him, to soothe his spirit, and give his parting soul a glance of that heaven which surely awaits him as a recompense for all the privations he has endured on earth; whilst the pressure on his palm of hard and manly hands, the tears of women attached to him like a brother by the past kind ministerings of his Godlike calling, the sobs of children, and the boisterous grief of the poor negroes, attest that not unregarded or unloved he hath dwelt on earth: a sunbeam steals through the leafy canopy and clothes his brow with a living halo, a sweet smile pervades his countenance, and amidst all that is beauteous in nature or commendable in man, the swamp doctor sinks in the blissful luxuries of death; no more to undergo privation and danger, disease or suffering. He hath given his last pill, had his last draught protested against; true to the instincts of his profession, he, no doubt, in the battling troop of the angels above, if feasible, will still continue to charge.
MY EARLY LIFE.
Upon what slender hinges the gate of a man's life turns, and what trifling things change the tenor of his being, and determine in a moment the direction of a lifetime! Who inhales his modicum of azote and oxygen, that cannot verify in his own person that we are the creatures of circumstances, and that there is a hidden divinity that shapes our ends, despite the endeavours of the pedagogue, man, to paddle them out of shape?
Some writer of celebrity has averred, and satisfactorily proven to all of his way of thinking, by a chain of logical deductions, that the war of 1812, the victory of New Orleans, the elevation of Jackson to the presidency, the annexation of Texas, General Taylor's not possessing the proportions of Hercules, and a sad accident that occurred to one of the best of families very recently, all was the inevitable effect of a quiet unobtrusive citizen in Maryland being charged some many years ago with hog stealing.
Were I writing a library instead of a volume, I would take up, for the satisfaction of my readers, link by link, the chain of consequences, from the mighty to the insignificant; also, if time and eternity permitted, trace the genealogy of the memorable porker (upon whose forcible seizure all these events depended), back to the time when Adam was not required to show a tailor's bill unpaid, as a portent of gentility, or Eve thought it a wife's duty to henpeck her husband.
As I cannot do this, I will, by an analogous example, show that equally—to me at least—important consequences have been deduced from as unimportant and remote causes; and that the writing of this volume, my being a swamp doctor in 1848, and having been steamboat cook, cabin-boy, gentleman of leisure, plough-boy, cotton-picker, and almost a printer, depended when I was ten years old on a young lady wearing “No. 2” shoes, when common sense and the size of her foot whispered “fives.” And now to show the connexion between these remote facts.
The death of my mother when I was very young breaking up our family circle, I became an inmate of the family of a married brother, whose wife, to an imperious temper, had, sadly for me, united the companionship of several younger brothers, whose associates I became when I entered her husband's door. Living in a free state, and his straitened circumstances permitting him but one hired servant, much of the family drudgery fell upon his wife, who up to my going there devolved a portion upon her brothers, but which all fell to my share as soon as I became domiciliated. I complained to my brother; but it was a younger brother arraigning a loved wife, and we all know how such a suit would be decided. Those only who have lived in similar circumstances can appreciate my situation; censured for errors and never praised for my industry, the scapegoat of the family and general errand-boy of the concern, waiting upon her brothers when I would fain have been at study or play, mine was anything but an enviable life. This condition of things continued until I had passed my tenth year, when, grown old by drudgery and wounded feelings, I determined to put into effect a long-cherished plan, to run away and seek my fortune wheresoever chance might lead or destiny determine.
By day and by night for several years this thought had been upon me; it had grown with my growth, and acquired strength from each day's developement of fresh indignities, filling me with so much resolution, that the boy of ten had the mental strength of twenty to effect such a purpose. I occupied my few leisure hours in building airy castles of future fortune and distinction, and in marking out the preparatory road to make Providence my guide, and have the world before me, where to choose.
One evening, just at sunset, I was seated on the lintel of the street-door, nursing one of my nephews, and affecting to still his cries, the consequence of a spiteful pinch I had given him, to repay some indignity offered me by his mother, when my attention was attracted to a young lady, who, apparently in much suffering, was tottering along, endeavouring to support herself by her parasol, which she used as a cane. To look at me now with my single bed, buttonless shirts, premature wigdom, and haggard old-bachelor looks, you would scarcely think I am or was ever an admirer of the sex. But against appearances I have always been one; and boy as I was then, the sight of that young woman tottering painfully along, awoke all my sensibilities, and made the fountain of sympathy gush out as freely as a child swallowing lozenges. Overcoming my boyish diffidence, as she got opposite the door, I addressed her, “Miss, will you not stop and rest? I will get you a chair, and you can stay in the porch, if you will not come in the house.”
“Thank you, my little man,” she gasped out, and attempted to seat herself in the chair I had brought, but striking her foot against the step the pain was so great, that she shrieked out, and fell dead, as I thought, on the floor.
Frightened terribly to think I had brought dead folks home, I joined my yell to her scream, as a prolongation, which outcry brought my sister-in-law to the scene. The woman prevailing, she carried her in the house, and shutting the door to keep out curious eyes, which began to gather round, she set to restoring her uninvited guest, which she soon accomplished. As soon as she could speak, she gasped out, “Take them off, they are killing me!”—pointing to her feet. This, with difficulty, was effected, and their blood-stained condition showed how great must have been her torment. She announced herself as the daughter of a well-known merchant of the city, and begged permission to send me to her father's store, to request him to send a carriage for her. Assent being given, she gave me the necessary directions to find it, and off I started. It was near the river.
On my way to the place, as I reached the river, I overtook a gentleman apparently laden down with baggage. On seeing me he said, “My lad, I will give you a quarter if you will carry one of these bundles down to that steamboat,” pointing to one that was ringing her last bell previous to starting to New Orleans. This was a world of money to me then, and I readily agreed. Increasing our pace, we reached just in time the steamer, between which and the place he had accosted me, I had determined, as the present opportunity was a good one, to put in execution my long-cherished plan, and run away from my home then. Its accomplishment was easy. Following my employer on board, I received my quarter; but instead of going on shore, I secreted myself on board, until the continued puff of the steamer and the merry chant of the firemen assured me we were fairly under way, that I was fast leaving my late home and becoming a fugitive upon the face of the waters, dependent upon my childish exertions for my daily bread, without money, save the solitary quarter, without a change of clothes; no friend to counsel me save the monitor within, a heart made aged and iron by contumely and youthful suffering.
Emerging from my concealment, I timidly sought the lower deck and sat me down upon the edge of the boat, and singling out some spark as it rose from the chimney, strove childishly to draw some augury of my future fate from its long continuance or speedy extinction.
The city was fast fading in the distance. I watched its receding houses, for, while they lasted, I felt as if I was not altogether without a home. A turn of the river hid it from sight, and my tears fell fast, for I was also leaving the churchyard which held my mother, and I then had not grown old enough to read life's bitterest page, to separate dream from reality, and know we could meet no more on earth; for oftentimes in the quiet calm of sleep, in the lonely hours of night, I had seen her bending over my tear-wet pillow, and praying for me the same sweet prayer that she prayed for me when I was her sinless youngest born, and I thought in leaving her grave I should never see her more, for how, when she should rise again at night, would she be able to find me, rambler as I was?
With this huge sorrow to dampen my joy at acquiring my liberty, chilled with the night air I was sinking into sleep in my dangerous seat, when the cook of the boat discovered me, and shaking me by the arm until I awoke, took me into the caboose, and giving me my supper, asked me, “What I was doing there, where I would be certain to fall overboard if I went to sleep?” I made up a fictitious tale, and finishing my story, asked him if he could assist me in getting some work on the boat to pay my passage, hinting I was not without experience in his department, in washing dishes, cleaning knives, &c. This was just to his hand; promising me employment and protection, he gave me a place to sleep in, which, fatigued as I was, I did not suffer long to remain unoccupied.
The morrow beheld me regularly installed as third cook or scullion, at eight dollars a month. This, to be sure, was climbing the world's ladder to fame and fortune at a snail's pace; but I was not proud, and willing to bide my time in hope of the better day a-coming. My leisure hours, which were not few, were employed in studying my books, of which I had a good supply, bought with money loaned me by my kind friend the cook.
I improved rapidly in my profession, till one day my ambition was gratified by being allowed to make the corn bread for the first cabin table. This I executed in capital style, with the exception of forgetting in my elation to sift the meal, thereby kicking up considerable of a stir when it came to be eaten, and causing my receiving a hearty curse for my carelessness, and a threat of a rope's end, the exercise of which I crushed by seizing a butcher knife in very determined style, and the affair passed over.
I remained on board until I had ascended as high as second cook, when I got disgusted with the kitchen and aspired to the cabin. I had heard of many cabin-boys becoming captain of their own vessels, but never of one cook,—except Captain Cook, and he became one from name, not by nature or profession. There being no vacancy on board, I received my wages and hired at V———— as cabin boy on a small steamboat running as packet to a small town, situated on one of the tributaries of the Mississippi.
On my first trip up I recollected that I had a brother living in the identical town to which the steamer was destined, who had been in the south for several years, and, when I last heard from him, was doing well in the world's ways.
I thought that as I would be landing every few days at his town, it would be only right that I should call and see him.
He was merchandising on a large scale, I was informed by a gentleman on board, a planter in one of the middle counties of Mississippi, who, seeing me reading in the cabin after I had finished my labour of the day, opened a conversation with me, and, extracting my history by his mild persuasiveness, offered to take me home with him, and send me to school until my education for a profession was completed. But my independence spurned the idea of being indebted to such an extent to a stranger; perhaps I was too enamoured of my wild roving life. I refused his offer, thanking him gratefully for the kind interest he seemed to take in me. He made me promise, that if I changed my mind soon, I would write to him, and gave me his direction, which I soon lost, and his name has passed from my recollection.
On reaching M———, I strolled up in town and inquired the way of a negro to Mr. Tensas' store. He pointed it out to me, and I entered. On inquiry for him, I found he was over at his dwelling-house, which I sought. It was a very pretty residence, I thought, for a bachelor; the walks were nicely gravelled, and shrubbery appropriately decorated the grounds.
I knocked at the door boldly; after a short delay it was opened by quite a handsome young finely dressed lady. Thinking I was mistaken in the house, I inquired if my brother resided there? She replied, that he did and invited me to wait, as he would soon be home. Walking in, after a short interval my brother came. Not remarking me at first, he gave the young lady a hearty kiss, which she returned with interest. I concluded she must be his housekeeper. Perceiving me, he recognised me in a moment, and gave me an affectionate welcome, bidding me go and kiss my sister-in law, which, not waiting for me to do, she performed herself.
My brother was very much shocked when he heard of my menial occupation, and used such arguments and persuasives to induce me to forsake my boat-cabin for his house, that I at length yielded.
He intended sending me the next year to college, when the monetary crash came over the South, and the millionaire of to-day awoke the penniless bankrupt of the morrow. My brother strove manfully to resist the impending ruin, but fell like the rest, and I saw all my dreams of a collegiate education vanishing into thin smoke.
Why recount the scenes of the next five years? it is but the thrice-told tale, of a younger brother dependent upon an elder, himself dependent upon others for employment and a subsistence for his family; his circumstances would improve—I would be sent to school—fortune would again lower, and I, together with my sister-in-law, would perform the menial offices of the family.
My sixteenth birthday was passed in the cotton-field, at the tail of a plough, in the midst of my fellow-labourers, between whom and myself but slight difference existed. I was discontented and unhappy. Something within kept asking me, as it had for years, if it was to become a toiler in the cotton-fields of the South, the companion of negroes, that I had stolen from my boyhood's home? was this the consummation of all my golden dreams?
My prospects were gloomy enough to daunt a much older heart. Poverty shut out all hopes of a collegiate education and a profession. Reflection had disgusted me with a steamboat. I determined to learn a trade. My taste for reading naturally inclined me to one in which I could indulge it freely: it was a printer's.
Satisfactory arrangements were soon made with a neighbouring printer and editor of a country newspaper. The day was fixed when he would certainly expect me; if I did not come by that time he was to conclude that I had altered my determination, and he would be free to procure another apprentice.
A wedding was to come off in the family for which I worked, in a short time, and they persuaded me to delay my departure a week, and attend it. I remained, thinking my brother would inform the printer of the cause of my detention. The wedding passed off, and the next morning, bright and early, I bid adieu, without a pang of regret, to my late home, and started for my new master's, but who was destined never to become such; for on reaching the office I learnt that my brother had failed to inform him why I delayed, and he had procured another apprentice only the day before. So that wedding gave one subject less to the fraternity of typos, and made an indifferent swamp doctor of matter for a good printer.
I returned home on foot, wallet on my back, and resumed my cotton-picking, feeling but little disappointed. I had shaken hands too often with poverty's gifts to let this additional grip give me much uneasiness.
The season was nearly over, and the negroes were striving to get the cotton out by Christmas, when one night at the supper table—the only meal I partook of with the family—my brother inquired, “How would you like to become a doctor, Madison?”
I thought he was jesting, and answered merely with a laugh. Become a doctor, a professional man, when I was too poor to go to a common school, was it not ludicrous?
“I am in earnest. Suppose a chance offered for you to become a student of medicine, would you accept it?” he said.
It was not the profession I would have selected had wealth given me a choice, but still it was a means of aquiring an education, a door through which I might possibly emerge to distinction, and I answered, “Show me the way, and I will accept without hesitation.”
He was not jesting. One of the first physicians in the state, taking a fancy to me, had offered to board me, clothe me, educate me in his profession, and become as a father to me, if I were willing to accept the kind offices at his hands.
I could scarcely realize the verity of what I had heard, yet 'twas true, and the ensuing new-year beheld me an inmate of the office of my benefactor.
He is now in his grave. Stricken down a soldier of humanity at his post, ere the meridian of life was reached. Living, he was called the widow's and orphan's friend, and the tears of all attested, at his death, that the proud distinction was undenied. I am not much, yet what I am he made me; and when my heart fails to thrill in gratitude at the silent breathing of his name, may it be cold to the loudest tones of life.
Behold me, then, a student of medicine, but yesterday a cotton-picker, illustrating within my own person, in the course of a few years, the versatility of American pursuits and character.
I was scarcely sixteen, yet I was a student of medicine, and had been, almost a printer, a cotton-picker, plough-boy, gin-driver, gentleman of leisure, cabin-boy, cook, scullion, and runaway, all distinctly referable to the young lady before-mentioned wearing “No. 2's,” when her foot required “fives.”
GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE MEDICINES.
N ow, Mr. Tensas,” said my kind preceptor, a few days after I had got regularly installed in the office, “your first duty must be to get acquainted with the different medicines. This is a Dispensatory—as you read of a drug you will find the majority mentioned on the shelves, take it down and digest”—here, unfortunately for the peace of mind and general welfare of a loafing Indian, who hung continually around the office, seeking what he might devour, or rather steal, the doctor was called away in a great hurry, and did not have time to finish his sentence, so “take it down and digest,” were the last words that remained in my mind. “Take it down and digest.” By the father of physic, thought I, this study of medicine is not the pleasant task I anticipated—rather arduous in the long run for the stomach, I should judge, to swallow and digest all the medicines, from Abracadabra to Zinzibar. Why, some of them are vomits, and I'd like to know how they are to be kept down long enough to be digested. Now, as for tamarinds, or liquorice, or white sugar, I might go them, but aloes, and rhubarb, and castor-oil, and running your finger down your throat, are rather disagreeable any way you can take them. I'm in for it, though; I suppose it's the way all doctors are made, and I have no claims to be exempted; and now for big book with the long name.
I opened it upon a list of the metals. Leading them in the order that alphabetical arrangement entitled it to, was, “Arsenic: deadly poison. Best preparation, Fowler's Solution. Symptoms from an overdose, burning in the stomach, great thirst, excessive vomiting,” &c., &c. With eyes distended to their utmost capacity, I read the dread' enumeration of its properties. What! take this infernal medicament down, digest it, and run the chances of its not being an overdose? Can't think of it a moment. I'll go back to my plough first; but then the doctor knew all the dangers when he gave his directions, and he was so precise and particular, there cannot be any mistake. I'll take a look at it anyhow, and I hunted it up. As the Dispensatory preferred Fowler's Solution, I selected that. Expecting to find but a small quantity, I was somewhat surprised when I discovered it in a four-gallon bottle, nearly full. I took out the stopper, and applied it cautiously to my nose. Had it not been for the label, bearing, in addition to the name, the fearful word “Poison,” and the ominous skull and cross-bones, I would have sworn it was good old Bourbon whiskey. Old Tubba, the Indian, was sitting in the office door, watching my proceedings with a great deal of interest. Catching the spirituous odour of the arsenical solution, he rose up and approached me eagerly, saying, “Ugh; Injun want whiskey; give Tubba whiskey; bring wild duck, so many,” holding up two of his fingers. The temptation was strong, I must confess. The medicines had to be tested, and I felt very much disinclined to depart this life just then, when the pin feathers of science had just commenced displacing the soft down of duck-lingdom; but this Indian, he is of no earthly account or use to any one; no one would miss him, even were he to take an overdose; science often has demanded sacrifices, and he would be a willing one; but—it may kill him; I can't do it; to kill a man before I get my diploma will be murder; a jury might not so pronounce it, but conscience would; I can't swallow it, and Tubba must not. These were the thoughts that flashed through my mind before I replied to the Indian's request. “Indian can't have whiskey. Tubba drink whiskey—Tubba do so.” Here I endeavoured to go through the pantomime of dying, as I was not master of sufficient Choctaw to explain myself. I lifted a glass to my mouth and pretended to empty it, then gave a short yell, clapping my hands over my stomach, staggering, jerking my hands and feet about, as I fell on the floor, repeating the yells, then turned on my face and lay still as though I was dead. But to my chagrin, all this did not seem to affect the Indian with that horror that I intended, but on the contrary, he grunted out a series of ughs, expressive of his satisfaction, saying, “Ugh; Tubba want get drunk too.”
The dinner hour arriving, I dismissed old Tubba, and arranging my toilet, walked up to the dwelling-house, near half a mile distant, where I was detained several hours by the presence of company, to whom I was forced to do the honours, the doctor not having returned.
At length I got released, and returned to the office, resolving to suspend my studies until I could have a talk with my preceptor; for, even on my ignorant mind, the shadow of a doubt was falling as to whether there might not be some mistake in my understanding of his language.
Entering the office, my eyes involuntarily sought the Solution of Arsenic. Father of purges and pukes, it was gone! “Tubba, you're a gone case. I ought to have hidden it. I might have known he would steal it after smelling the whiskey; poor fellow! it's no use to try and find him, he's struck a straight line for the swamp; poor fellow! it's all my fault.” Thus upbraiding myself for my carelessness, I walked back into my bedroom. And my astonishment may be imagined, when I discovered the filthy Indian tucked in nicely between my clean sheets.
To all appearances he was in a desperate condition, the fatal bottle lying hugged closely in his embrace, nearly empty. He must be suffering awfully, thought I, when humanity had triumphed over the indignation I felt at the liberties he had taken, but Indian-like, he bears it without a groan. Well has his race been called “the stoics of the wood, the men without a tear.” But I must not let him die without an effort to save him. I don't know what to do myself, so I'll call in Dr. B., and away I posted; but Dr. B. was absent; so was Dr. L.; and in fact every physician of the town. Each office, however, contained one or more students; and as half a loaf is better than no bread, I speedily informed them of the condition of affairs, and quickly, like a flock of young vultures, we were thronging around the poisoned Indian, to what we would soon have rendered the harvest of death.
“Stomach pump eo instanti!” said one; “Sulphas Zinci cum Decoction Tabacum!” said another; “Venesection!” suggested a third. “Puke of Lobelia!” suggested a young disciple of Thompson, who self-invited had joined the conclave, “Lobelia. Number six, pepper tea, yaller powders, I say!”
“Turn him out! Turn him out! What right has young Roots in a mineral consultation? Turn him out!”—and heels over head, out of the room, through the middle door, and down the office steps, went “young Roots,” impelled by the whole body of the enraged “regulars”—save myself, who, determined amidst the array of medical lore not to appear ignorant, wisely held my tongue and rubbed the patient's feet with a greased rag. Again arose the jargon of voices.
“Sulphas Zinci—Stomach, Arteri, pump, otomy-must—legs—hot-toddy—to bleed him—lectricity—hot blister—flat-irons—open his—windpipe but still I said never a word, but rubbed his feet, wondering whether I would ever acquire as much knowledge as my fellow students showed the possession of. By the by, I was the only one that was doing anything for the patient, the others being too busy discussing the case to attend to the administration of any one of the remedies proposed.
“I say stimulate, the system is sinking,” screamed a tall, stout-looking student, as the Indian slid down towards the foot of the bed.
“Bleeding is manifestly and clearly indicated,” retorted a bitter rival in love as well as medicine, “his muscular action is too excessive,” as Tubba made an ineffectual effort to throw his body up to the top of the mosquito bar.
“Bleeding would be as good as murder,” said Number 1.
“Better cut his throat than stimulate him,” said Number 2.
“Pshaw!”
“Fudge!”
“Sir!”
“Fellow!”
“Fool!”
“Liar!”
Yim! Yim! and stomach-pump and brandy bottle flashed like meteors.
“Fight! fight! form a ring! fair play!”
“You're holding my friend.”
“You lie! You rascal!”
Vim! Vim! from a new brace of combatants.
“He's gouging my brother! I must help! foul play!”
“Let go my hair!” Vim! Vim! and a triplet went at it.
I stopped rubbing, and looked on with amazement. “Gentlemen, this is unprofessional! 'tis undignified! 'tis disgraceful! stop, I command you!” I yelled, but no one regarded me; some one struck me, and away I pitched into the whole lot promiscuously, having no partner, the patient dying on the bed whilst we were studying out his case.
“Fight! fight!” I heard yelled in the street, as I had finished giving a lick all round, and could hardly keep pitching into the mirror to whip my reflection, I wanted a fight so bad.
“Fight! fight! in D-5s back office!” and here came the whole town to see the fun.
“I command the peace!” yelled Dick Locks; “I'm the mayor.”
“And I'm the hoss for you!” screamed I, doubling him up with a lick in the stomach, which he replied to by laying me on my back, feeling very faint, in the opposite corner of the room.
“I command the peace!” continued Dick, flinging one of the combatants out of the window, another out of the door, and so on alternately, until the peace was preserved by nearly breaking its infringers to pieces.
“What in the devil, Mr. Tensas, does this mean?” said my preceptor, who at that moment came in; “what does all this fighting, and that drunken Indian lying in your bed, mean? have you all been drunk?”
“He has poisoned himself, sir, in my absence, with the solution of arsenic, which he took for whiskey; and as all the doctors were out of town, I called in the students, and they got to fighting over him whilst consulting;” I replied, very indignantly, enraged at the insinuation that we had been drinking.
“Poisoned with solution of arsenic, ha! ha! oh! lord! ha!” and my preceptor, throwing his burly form on the floor, rolled over and over, making the office ring with his laughter—“poisoned, ha! ha!”
“Get out of this, you drunken rascal!” said he to the dying patient, applying his horse-whip to him vigorously. It acted like a charm: giving a loud yell of defiance, the old Choctaw sprang into the middle of the floor.
“Whoop! whiskey lour! Injun big man, drunk heap. Whoop! Tubba big Injun heap!” making tracks for the door, and thence to the swamp.
The truth must out. The boys had got into the habit of making too free with my preceptor's whiskey; and to keep off all but the knowing one, he had labelled it, “Solution of Arsenic.”
A TIGHT RACE CONSIDERIN'.
During my medical studies, passed in a small village in Mississippi, I became acquainted with a family named Hibbs (a nom de plume of course), residing a few miles in the country. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Hibbs and son. They were plain, unlettered people, honest in intent and deed, but overflowing with that which amply made up for all their deficiencies of education, namely, warm-hearted hospitality, the distinguishing trait of southern character. They were originally from Virginia, from whence they had emigrated in quest of a clime more genial, and a soil more productive than that in which their fathers toiled. Their search had been rewarded, their expectations realized, and now, in their old age, though not wealthy in the “Astorian” sense, still they had sufficient to keep the “wolf from the door,” and drop something more substantial than condolence and tears in the hat that poverty hands round for the kind offerings of humanity.
The old man was like the generality of old planters, men whose ambition is embraced by the family or social circle, and whose thoughts turn more on the relative value of “Sea Island” and “Mastodon,” and the improvement of their plantations, than the “glorious victories of Whig-gery in Kentucky,” or the “triumphs of democracy in Arkansas.”
The old lady was a shrewd, active dame, kind-hearted and long-tongued, benevolent and impartial, making her coffee as strong for the poor pedestrian, with his all upon his back, as the broadcloth sojourner, with his “up-country pacer.” She was a member of the church, as well as the daughter of a man who had once owned a race-horse: and these circumstances gave her an indisputable right, she thought, to “let on all she knew,” when religion or horse-flesh was the theme. At one moment she would be heard discussing whether the new “circus rider,” (as she always called him,) was as affecting in Timothy as the old one was pathetic in Paul, and anon (not anonymous, for the old lady did everything above board, except rubbing her corns at supper), protecting dad's horse from the invidious comparisons of some visiter, who, having heard, perhaps, that such horses as Fashion and Boston existed, thought himself qualified to doubt the old lady's assertion that her father's horse “Shumach” had run a mile on one particular occasion. “Don't tell me,” was her never failing reply to their doubts, “Don't tell me 'bout Fashun or Bosting, or any other beating 'Shumach' a fair race, for the thing was unfesible; did'nt he run a mile a minute by Squire Dim's watch, which always stopt 'zactly at twelve, and did'nt he start a minute afore, and git out, jes as the long hand war givin' its last quiver on ketchin' the short leg of the watch? And didn't he beat everything in Virginny 'cept once? Dad and the folks said he'd beat then, if young Mr. Spotswood hadn't give 'old Swaga,' Shumach's rider, some of that 'Croton water,' (that them Yorkers is makin' sich a fuss over as bein' so good, when gracious knows, nothin' but what the doctors call interconception could git me to take a dose) and jis 'fore the race Swage or Shumach, I don't 'stinctly 'member which, but one of them had to 'let down,' and so dad's hoss got beat.”
The son I will describe in few words. Imbibing his parents' contempt for letters, he was very illiterate, and as he had not enjoyed the equivalent of travel, was extremely ignorant on all matters not relating to hunting or plantation duties. He was a stout, active fellow, with a merry twinkling of the eye, indicative of humour, and partiality for practical joking. We had become very intimate, he instructing me in “forest lore,” and I, in return, giving amusing stories, or, what was as much to his liking, occasional introductions to my hunting-flask.
Now that I have introduced the “Dramatis Personæ,” I will proceed with my story. By way of relaxation, and to relieve the tedium incident more or less to a student's life, I would take my gun, walk out to old Hibbs's, spend a day or two, and return refreshed to my books.
One fine afternoon I started upon such an excursion, and as I had upon a previous occasion missed killing a fine buck, owing to my having nothing but squirrel shot, I determined to go this time for the “antlered monarch,” by loading one barrel with fifteen “blue whistlers,” reserving the other for small game.
At the near end of the plantation was a fine spring, and adjacent, a small cave, the entrance artfully or naturally concealed, save to one acquainted with its locality. The cave was nothing but one of those subterraneous washes so common in the west and south, and called “sink holes.” It was known only to young H. and myself, and we, for peculiar reasons, kept secret, having put it in requisition as the depository of a jug of “old Bourbon,” which we favoured, and as the old folks abominated drinking, we had found convenient to keep there, whither we would repair to get our drinks, and return to the house to hear them descant on the evils of drinking, and “vow no 'drap,' 'cept in doctor's truck, should ever come on their plantation.”
Feeling very thirsty, I took my way by the spring that evening. As I descended the hill o'ertopping it, I beheld the hind parts of a bear slowly being drawn into the cave. My heart bounded at the idea of killing a bear, and my plans were formed in a second. I had no dogs—the house was distant—and the bear becoming “small by degrees, and beautifully less.” Every hunter knows, if you shoot a squirrel in the head when it's sticking out of a hole, ten to one he'll jump out; and I reasoned that if this were true regarding squirrels, might not the operation of the same principle extract a bear, applying it low down in the back.
Quick as thought I levelled my gun and fired, intending to give him the buckshot when his body appeared; but what was my surprise and horror, when, instead of a bear rolling out, the parts were jerked nervously in, and the well-known voice of young H. reached my ears.
“Murder! Hingins! h—ll and kuckle-burs! Oh! Lordy' 'nuff!—'nuff!—take him off! Jis let me off this wunst, dad, and I'll never run mam's colt again! Oh! Lordy! Lordy! all my brains blowed, clean out! Snakes! snakes!” yelled he, in a shriller tone, if possible, “H—ll on the outside and snakes in the sink-hole! I'll die a Christian, anyhow, and if I die before I wake,” and out scrambled poor H., pursued by a large black-snake.
If my life had depended on it, I could not have restrained my laughter. Down fell the gun, and down dropped I shrieking convulsively. The hill was steep, and over and over I went, until my head striking against a stump at the bottom, stopped me, half senseless. On recovering somewhat from the stunning blow, I found Hibbs upon me, taking satisfaction from me for having blowed out his brains. A contest ensued, and H. finally relinquished his hold, but I saw from the knitting of his brows, that the bear-storm, instead of being over, was just brewing. “Mr. Tensas,” he said with awful dignity, “I'm sorry I put into you 'fore you cum to, but you're at yourself now, and as you've tuck a shot at me, it's no more than far I should have a chance 'fore the hunt's up.”
It was with the greatest difficulty I could get H. to bear with me until I explained the mistake; but as soon as he learned it, he broke out in a huge laugh. “Oh, Dod busted! that's 'nuff; you has my pardon. I ought to know'd you didn't 'tend it; 'sides, you jis scraped the skin. I war wus skeered than hurt, and if you'll go to the house and beg me off from the old folks, I'll never let on you cuddent tell copperas breeches from bar-skin.”
Promising that I would use my influence, I proposed taking a drink, and that he should tell me how he had incurred his parent's anger. He assented, and after we had inspected the cave, and seen that it held no other serpent than the one we craved, we entered its cool recess, and H. commenced.
“You see, Doc, I'd heered so much from mam 'bout her dad's Shumach and his nigger Swage, and the mile a minute, and the Croton water what was gin him, and how she bleved that if it warn't for bettin', and the cussin' and fightin', running race-hosses warn't the sin folks said it war; and if they war anything to make her 'gret gettin' religion and jinin' the church, it war cos she couldn't 'tend races, and have a race-colt of her own to comfort her 'clinin' years, sich as her daddy had afore her, till she got me; so I couldn't rest for wantin' to see a hoss-race, and go shares, p'raps, in the colt she war wishin' for. And then I'd think what sort of a hoss I'd want him to be—a quarter nag, a mile critter, or a hoss wot could run (fur all mam says it can't be did) a whole four mile at a stretch. Sometimes I think I'd rather own a quarter nag, for the suspense wouldn't long be hung, and then we could run up the road to old Nick Bamer's cow-pen, and Sally is almost allers out thar in the cool of the evenin'; and in course we wouldn't be so cruel as to run the poor critter in the heat of the day. But then agin, I'd think I'd rather have a miler,—for the 'citement would be greater, and we could run down the road to old Wither's orchard, an' his gal Miry is frightfully fond of sunnin' herself thar, when she 'spects me 'long, and she'd hear of the race, certain; but then thar war the four miler for my thinkin', and I'd knew'd in such case the 'citement would be greatest of all, and you know, too, from dad's stable to the grocery is jist four miles, an' in case of any 'spute, all hands would be willin' to run over, even if it had to be tried a dozen times. So I never could 'cide on which sort of a colt to wish for. It was fust one, then t'others, till I was nearly 'stracted, and when mam, makin' me religious, told me one night to say grace, I jes shut my eyes, looked pious, and yelled out, 'D——n it, go!' and in 'bout five minutes arter, came near kickin' dad's stumak off, under the table, thinkin' I war spurrin' my critter in a tight place.. So I found the best way was to get the hoss fust, and then 'termine whether it should be Sally Bamers, and the cow-pen; Miry Withers, and the peach orchard; or Spillman's grocery, with the bald face.
“You've seed my black colt, that one that dad's father gin me in his will when he died, and I 'spect the reason he wrote that will war, that he might have wun then, for it's more then he had when he was alive, for granma war a monstrus overbearin' woman. The colt would cum up in my mind, every time I'd think whar I was to git a hoss. 'Git out!' said I at fust—he never could run, and 'sides if he could, mam rides him now, an he's too old for anything, 'cept totin her and bein' called mine; for you see, though he war named Colt, yet for the old lady to call him old, would bin like the bar 'fecting contempt for the rabbit, on account of the shortness of his tail.
“Well, thought I, it does look sorter unpromisin', but its colt or none; so I 'termined to put him in trainin' the fust chance. Last Saturday, who should cum ridin' up but the new cirkut preacher, a long-legged, weakly, sickly, never-contented-onless-the-best-on-the-plantation-war-cooked-fur-him sort of a man; but I didn't look at him twice, his hoss was the critter that took my eye; for the minute I looked at him, I knew him to be the same hoss as Sam Spooner used to win all his splurgin' dimes with, the folks said, and wot he used to ride past our house so fine on. The hoss war a heap the wuss for age and change of masters; for preachers, though they're mity 'ticular 'bout thar own comfort, seldom tends to thar hosses, for one is privit property and 'tother generally borried. I seed from the way the preacher rid, that he didn't know the animal he war straddlin'; but I did, and I 'termined I wouldn't lose sich a chance of trainin' Colt by the side of a hoss wot had run real races. So that night, arter prayers and the folks was abed, I and Nigger Bill tuck the hosses and carried them down to the pastur'. It war a forty-aker lot, and consequently jist a quarter across—for I thought it best to promote Colt, by degrees, to a four-miler. When we got thar, the preacher's hoss showed he war willin'; but Colt, dang him! commenced nibblin' a fodder-stack over the fence. I nearly cried for vexment, but an idea struck me; I hitched the critter, and told Bill to get on Colt and stick tight wen I giv' the word. Bill got reddy, and unbeknownst to him I pulled up a bunch of nettles, and, as I clapped them under Colt's tail, yelled, 'Go!' Down shut his graceful like a steel-trap, and away he shot so quick an' fast that he jumpt clean out from under Bill, and got nearly to the end of the quarter 'fore the nigger toch the ground: he lit on his head, and in course warn't hurt—so we cotched Colt, an' I mounted him.
“The next time I said 'go' he showed that age hadn't spiled his legs or memory. Bill 'an me 'greed we could run him now, so Bill mounted Preacher and we got ready. Thar war a narrer part of the track 'tween two oaks, but as it war near the end of the quarter, I 'spected to pass Preacher 'fore we got thar, so I warn't afraid of barkin' my shins.
“We tuck a fair start, and off we went like a peeled injun, an' I soon 'scovered that it warn't such an easy matter to pass Preacher, though Colt dun delightful; we got nigh the trees, and Preacher warn't past yet, an' I 'gan to get skeered, for it warn't more than wide enuf for a horse and a half; so I hollered to Bill to hold up, but the imperdent nigger turned his ugly pictur, and said, 'he'd be cussed if he warn't goin' to play his han' out.' I gin him to understand he'd better fix for a foot-race when we stopt, and tried to hold up Colt, but he wouldn't stop. We reached the oaks, Colt tried to pass Preacher, Preacher tried to pass Colt, and cowollop, crosh, cochunk! we all cum down like 'simmons arter frost. Colt got up and won the race; Preacher tried hard to rise, but one hind leg had got threw the stirrup, an' tother in the head stall, an' he had to lay still, doubled up like a long nigger in a short bed. I lit on my feet, but Nigger Bill war gone entire. I looked up in the fork of one of the oaks, and thar he war sittin', lookin' very composed on surroundin' nature. I couldn't git him down till I promised not to hurt him for disobeyin' orders, when he slid down. We'd 'nuff racin' for that night', so we put up the hosses and went to bed.
“Next morning the folks got ready for church, when it was diskivered that the hosses had got out. I an' Bill started off to look for them; we found them cleer off in the field, tryin' to git in the pastur' to run the last night's race over, old Blaze, the reverlushunary mule, bein' along to act as judge.
“By the time we got to the house it war nigh on to meet-in' hour; and dad had started to the preachin', to tell the folks to sing on, as preacher and mam would be 'long bimeby. As the passun war in a hurry, and had been complainin' that his creetur war dull, I 'suaded him to put on uncle Jim's spurs what he fotch from Mexico. I saddled the passun's hoss, takin' 'ticular pains to let the saddle-blanket come down low in the flank. By the time these fixins war threw, mam war 'head nigh on to a quarter. 'We must ride on, passun,' I said, 'or the folks 'll think we is lost.' So I whipt up the mule I rid, the passun chirrupt and chuct to make his crittur gallop, but the animal didn't mind him a pic. I 'gan to snicker, an' the passun 'gan to git vext; sudden he thought of his spurs, so he ris up, an' drove them vim in his hoss's flanx, till they went through his saddle-blanket, and like to bored his nag to the holler. By gosh! but it war a quickener—the hoss kickt till the passun had to hug him round the neck to keep from pitchin' him over his head. He next jumpt up 'bout as high as a rail fence, passun holdin' on and tryin' to git his spurs—but they war lockt—his breeches split plum across with the strain, and the piece of wearin' truck wot's next the skin made a monstrous putty flag as the old hoss, like drunkards to a bar-bacue, streakt it up the road.
“Mam war ridin' slowly along, thinkin' how sorry she was, cos Chary Dolin, who always led her off, had sich a bad cold, an' wouldn't be able to 'sist her singin' to-day. She war practisin' the hymns, and had got as far as whar it says, 'I have a race to run,' when the passun huv in sight, an' in 'bout the dodgin' of a diedapper, she found thar war truth in the words, for the colt, hearin' the hoss cumin' up behind, began to show symptoms of runnin'; but when he heard the passun holler 'wo! wo!' to his hoss, he thought it war me shoutin' 'go!' and sure 'nuff off they started jis as the passun got up even; so it war a fair race. Whoop! git out, but it war egsitin'—the dust flew, and the rail-fence appeered strate as a rifle. Thar war the passun, his legs fast to the critter's flanx, arms lockt round his neck, face as pale as a rabbit's belly, and the white flag streemin' far behind—and thar war Mam, fust on one side, then on t'other, her new caliker swelled up round her like a bear with the dropsy, the old lady so much surprized she cuddent ride steddy, an' tryin' to stop her colt, but he war too well trained to stop while he heard 'go!' Mam got 'sited at last, and her eyes to glimmer like she seen her daddy's ghost axin.' 'if he ever trained up a child or a race-hoss to be 'fraid of a small brush on a Sunday,' she commenced ridin' beautiful; she braced herself up in the saddle, and began to make calkerlations how she war to win the race, for it war nose and nose, and she saw the passun spurrut' his critter every jump. She tuk off her shoe, and the way a number ten go-to-meetin' brogan commenced givin' a hoss particular Moses, were a caution to hoss-flesh—but still it kept nose and nose.
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“She found she war carryin' too much weight for Colt, so she 'gan to throw off plunder, till nothin' was left but her saddle and close, and the spurs kept tellin' still. The old woman commenced strippin' to lighten, till it wouldn't bin the clean thing for her to have taken off one dud more; an' then when she found it war no use while the spurs lasted, she got cantankerous. 'Passun,' said she, 'I'll be cust if it's fair or gentlemanly for you, a preacher of the gospel, to take advantage of an old woman this way, usin' spurs when you know she can't wear 'em—'taint Christian-like nuther,' and she burst into cryin'. 'Wo! Miss Hibbs! Wo! Stop! Madam! Wo! Your son!'—he attempted to say, when the old woman tuck him on the back of the head, and fillin' his mouth with right smart of a saddle-horn, and stop-pin' the talk, as far as his share went for the present.
“By this time they'd got nigh on to the meetin'-house, and the folks were harkin' away on 'Old Hundred,' and wonderin' what could have become of the passun and mam Hibbs. One sister in a long beard axt another brethren in church, if she'd heered anything 'bout that New York preecher runnin' way with a woman old enough to be his muther. The brethrens gin a long sigh an' groaned 'it ain't possible! marciful heavens! you don't 'spicion?' wen the sound of the hosses comin', roused them up like a touch of the agur, an' broke off their sarpent-talk. Dad run out to see what was to pay, but when he seed the hosses so close together, the passun spurrin', and mam ridin' like close war skase whar she cum, he knew her fix in a second, and 'tarmined to help her; so clinchin' a sap-lin', he hid 'hind a stump 'bout ten steps off, and held on for the hosses. On they went in beautiful style, the passun's spurs tellin' terrible, and mam's shoe operatin' 'no small pile of punkins,'—passun stretched out the length of two hosses, while mam sot as stiff and strate as a bull yearling in his fust fight, hittin' her nag, fust on one side, next on t'other, and the third for the passun, who had chawed the horn till little of the saddle, and less of his teeth war left, and his voice sounded as holler as a jackass-nicker in an old saw-mill.
“The hosses war nose and nose, jam up together so close that mam's last kiverin' and passun's flag had got lockt, an' 'tween bleached domestic and striped linsey made a beautiful banner for the pious racers.
“On they went like a small arthquake, an' it seemed like it war goin' to be a draun race; but dad, when they got to him, let down with all his might on colt, searin' him so bad that he jumpt clean ahead of passun, beatin' him by a neck, buttin' his own head agin the meetin'-house, an' pitchin' mam, like a lam for the 'sacryfise, plum through the winder 'mongst the mourners, leavin' her only garment flutterin' on a nail in the'sash. The men shot their eyes and scrambled outen the house, an' the women gin mam so much of their close that they like to put themselves in the same fix.
“The passun quit the circuit, and I haven't been home yet.”
TAKING GOOD ADVICE.
P Poor fellow! if he had only listened to me! but he wouldn't take good advice,” is the trite exclamation of the worldling when he hears that some friend has cut his throat, impelled by despair, or has become bankrupt, or employed a famous physician, or is about to get married, or has applied for a divorce, or paid his honest debts, or committed any deprecated act, or become the victim of what the world calls misfortune; “poor fellow, but he wouldn't take good advice.” Take good advice! yes, if I had obeyed what is called good advice, I would be now in my grave; as it is, I am still on a tailor's books, the best evidence of a man's being alive.
When I was a boy my friends were continually chiding me for my half bent position in sitting or walking, and since I have become a man the cry is still the same, “Why don't you walk straight, Madison? hold up your head.” Had I obeyed them, a tree-top that fell upon me whilst visiting a patient lately, crushing my shoulder and bruising my back, would have fallen directly upon my head, and shown, in all probability, the emptiness of earthly things. This is one instance showing that good advice is not always best to be taken; but I have another, illustrating my position still more strongly.
Whilst a medical student, I was travelling on one of the proverbially fine and accommodating steamers that ply between Vicksburg and New Orleans. Before my departure, the anxious affection of a female friend made her exact a promise from me not to play cards; but the peculiarity of the required pledge gave me an opportunity of fulfilling it to the letter, but breaking it as to the spirit. “You've promised me, Madison, not to play cards whilst you're on earth: see that you keep it.” I assured her I would do so, as it applied only to shore, and when the boat was on a sand-bar. It was more her friendly solicitude than any real necessity in my habits, that made her require the promise, as I never played except on steamboats, and then only at night, when the beautiful scenery that skirts the river cannot be seen or admired.
It was a boisterous night above in the heavens, making the air too cool for southern dress or nerves, so the cabin and social hall were densely crowded, not a small proportion engaged in the mysteries of that science which requires four knaves to play or practise it. I had not yet sat down, but showed strong premonitory symptoms of being about to do so, when my arm was gently taken by an old friend, who requested me to walk with him into our state-room. “Madison,” said the old gentleman, “I want to give you some good advice. I see you are about to play cards for money; you are a young man, and consequently have but little knowledge of its pernicious effects. I speak from experience; and apart from the criminality of gambling, I assure you, you will have but little chance of winning in the crowd you intend playing with: in fact, you are certain to lose. Now promise me you won't play, and I shall go to bed with the satisfaction that I have saved you from harm.” The charm was laid too skilfully upon me; I would not promise, for what was I to do in the long nights of present and future travel? so my old friend gave me up in despair, and retired to rest, whilst I sought the card-table.
Young and inexperienced as I was, an unusual strain of good luck attended me; and when the game broke up at daylight, I was considerably ahead of the hounds.
I retired to my state-room to regain my lost sleep, and soon was oblivious of everything. How long I slept I do not know: my dreams ran upon the past game; and just as I held “four aces,” and had seen my opponent's two hundred and went him four hundred dollars better, I was aroused from my slumbers by the confused cries of “Fire! Back her! Stop her! She'll blow up when she strikes!” and a thousand-and-one undistinguishable sounds, but all indicative of intense excitement and alarm.
Stopping for nothing, I made one spring from my berth into the middle of the cabin, alighting on the deserted breakfast-table, amidst the crash of broken crockery, three jumps more were taken, which landed me up on the hurricane-deck, where I found nearly all the passengers, male and female, assembled in a fearful state of alarm, preventing by their outcry the necessary orders, for the preservation of the boat, from being heard. I took in the whole scene at a glance. I forgot to mention, when I retired to rest, the wind was blowing to such a degree that every gust threatened to overset the boat. The captain, who was a prudent, sensible man, had tied his boat to the shore, waiting for the storm to subside. After the lapse of a few hours, a calm having ensued, he cast loose, intending to proceed on his way; but scarcely had he done so, when the wind, suddenly increasing, caught the boat, and, in despite of six boilers and the helm hard down, was carrying her directly across the Mississippi, towards the opposite shore, where a formidable array of old “poke-stalks” and low, bluff banks were eagerly awaiting to impale us upon the one hand, or knock us into a cocked hat upon the other. At this time I arrived upon the scene—the boat was nearly at the shore, the waters boiling beneath her bows like an infernal cauldron.
Great as was the danger, there were still some so reckless as to make remarks upon my unique appearance, and turn the minds of many from that condition of religious revery and mental casting up and balancing of accounts, which the near proximity to death so imminently required; and certainly I did look queer—no boots, no coat, no drawers—but, lady reader, don't think my bosom was false, and I had no subuculus on. “I didn't have anything else” on—more truth than poetry, I ween. Sixteen young ladies, unmindful of danger, ran shrieking away; fourteen married ones walked leisurely to the stern of the boat, where the captain had been vainly before trying to drive them; whilst two old maids stood and looked at me in unconscious astonishment, wonderful amazement, and inexpressible surprise.
“Look out!” rang the shrill voice of the captain; and, with a dull, heavy thump, the boat struck the bank, jarring the marrow of every one on board, save myself—for, just before she struck, I calculated the distance, made my jump, landed safely, and was snugly ensconced behind a large log, hallooing for some one to bring me my clothes.
No damage of consequence, contrary to expectations, was done our craft; and after digging her out of the bank, we proceeded on our way, a heavy rain having succeeded the storm.
I was lying in my state-room, ruminating sadly over the pleasureableness of being the laughing-stock of the whole boat, when my old adviser of the night previous entered the room, with too much laughter on his face to make his coming moral deduction of much force.
“You see now, Madison, the result of not having followed my advice. Had you been governed by me, the disagreeable event of the morning would never have occurred; you would have been in bed at the proper hour, slept during the proper hours, been ready dressed as a consequence at the breakfast hour, and not been the cause of such a mortal shock to the delicacy of so many delicate females, besides making a d—d unanimous fool of yourself.”
I said but little in reply, but thought a great deal. I kept my room the balance of the trip, sickness being my plea.
I transacted my business in the city, and chance made my old adviser and myself fellow-passengers and roommates again, on our upward trip. Night saw me regularly at the card-table, and my old friend at nine o'clock as constantly in bed.
It was after his bed-hour when we reached Grand Gulf, where several lady-passengers intended leaving. They were congregated in the middle of the gentlemen's cabin, bringing out baggage and preparing to leave as soon as the boat landed.
At the landing a large broad-horn was lazily sleeping, squatted on the muddy waters like a Dutch beauty over a warming-pan. Her steering-oar—the broad-horn's, not the beauty's—instead of projecting, as custom and the law requires, straight out behind, had swung round, and stood capitally for raking a boat coming up along side. The engines had stopped, but the boat had not lost the impetus of the steam, but was slowly approaching the broad-horn, when a crash was head—a state-room door was burst open, and out popped my ancient comrade, followed up closely by a sharp stick, in the shape of the greasy handle of the steering-oar. It passed directly through my berth, and would undeniably have killed me, had I been in it.
It was my turn to exult now. I pulled “Old Advice” out from under the table, and, as I congratulated him on his escape, maliciously added, “You see, now, that playing cards is not totally unattended with good effects. Had. I, agreeably to your advice, been in bed, I would now be a mangled corpse, and you enjoying the satisfaction that it was your counsel that had killed me; whilst, on the other hand, had you been playing, you would have escaped your fright, and the young ladies from Nankin in all probability would never have known you slept in a red bandana.” I made a convert of him to my side; we sat down to a quiet game, and before twelve that night he broke me flat.
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
E very one is acquainted with the horror that the presence of the small-pox, or the rumour—which is as bad—of its being in the neighbourhood, excites. A planter living some thirty or forty miles from where I was studying, had returned from New Orleans, where he had contracted, as it afterwards turned out, the measles, but which, on their first appearance, had been pronounced by a young, inexperienced physician, who was first in attendance, an undoubted case of small-pox. The patient was a nervous, excitable man, and consequently very much alarmed; wishing further advice, he posted a boy after my preceptor, who, desirous of giving me an opportunity of seeing the disease, took me with him.
The planter lived near a small town in the interior, now no more, but which, in the minds of its projectors—judging from its lithographed map—was destined to rival the first cities of the land. The nature of the disease was apparent in a moment to my preceptor's experienced eye; but the excitability and fear of the patient had aggravated the otherwise simple disease, so that it presented some really alarming symptoms.
A liberal administration of the brandy bottle soon reassured the patient and moderated the disease, so that my preceptor, whose presence was urgently demanded at home, could intrust him to my care, giving me directions how to treat the case. He left for home, and I strutted about, proud in the consciousness of being attending physician. It being my first appearance in that capacity, you may imagine that the patient did not suffer for want of attention. I wore the enamel nearly off his teeth by the friction produced by requiring the protrusion of his tongue for examination, and examined his abdomen so often to detect hidden inflammation, that I almost produced, by my pommelling, what I was endeavouring to discover in the first place. In despite of the disease and doctor, the case continued to improve, and I intended leaving in the morning for home, when the alarm of the small-pox being in the settlement having spread, I was put in requisition to vaccinate the good people. Charging a dollar for each operation, children half price, I was reaping a harvest of small change, when the virus gave out, and plenty of calls still on hand. Knowing that there was no smallpox in the first instance, and apprehensive that the fears of the good folks, unless they imagined themselves protected, might produce bad effects. I committed a pious fraud, and found on the back of my horse, which fortunately had been galled lately, an ample supply of virus. My labours at length terminated, and I prepared to depart, taking the small town before-mentioned in my way; I dismounted at the tavern, to get a drink and have my horse watered. On entering, I found several acquaintances whom I did not expect to meet in that section of the country. Mutually rejoiced at the meeting, it did not take us long to get on the threshold of one of those wild carouses, which the convivial disposition of the Southerner—either by birth or adoption—so unfortunately disposes him to. The Bacchanalian temple was soon entered, and not a secret recess of its grand proportions but what was explored. Night closed upon the scene, and found us prepared for any wild freak or mad adventure.
It was the southern autumn, when the dark-eyed night has just sufficient compassion on old winter's wooing to allow him the privilege of the shadow of a kiss,—just cool enough, in other words, they were, to reconcile us to a single blanket upon the bed, and draw from the meditative minds of poverty-stricken students a melancholy sigh, when the empty pocket reflects upon the almost equally naked back, and curses it for needing winter clothes at all at all.
As yet, however, there had been no frost, and the forests still remained decked in their holiday suits, the gorgeous apparel of a southern clime.
With those who have a soul that the shoemaker cannot save, this is the great season of camp-meetings, love-feasts, protracted preaching, and other religious festivals. At this particular time the religious world, and many who were not of that stamp, were on the lookout for the end of the world, and the day of judgment, which some theological calculator had figured up for this year, and no postponement on account of the weather, sure!
The prediction had produced great excitement amongst all with whom the prophet had any credit; and where his credit stopped other commenced—for some of the knowing ones, who firmly believed the prophecy, purchased any amount of goods at exorbitant prices, at twelve months' credit, thinking they would be in “Kingdom Come” before the notes fell due.
Camp-meetings were being held in all parts of the country, and prayers of all kinds, from the unpremeditated effusion of the conscience-stricken negro to the elaborate supplications of the regularly initiated circuit-rider, arose, making the welkin ring with the name of Jehovah. A large meeting was in full operation not far from the place where we were passing the night in less commendable pursuits; and, judging from the fervency of the prayers, declamations, singing, screamings, and glorifications, salvation was being obtained in a very satisfactory manner. The location of the camp was in the verge of the Loosa Chitta swamp, at the termination of a long lane, which extended from where we were.
The night was waning away, but still the zeal of the camp-meeting continued unabated, and bid fair to hail the morning. We had also reached our wildest state of excitement, and were consequently ready for any foolish scheme or reckless undertaking. The proposal of one of the most imaginative of the number, that we should personify the fiery consummation which revelation tells us shall terminate this world, met with unanimous and wild approval.
Each man furnishing himself with a flowing robe of white, half the number—nearly thirty—carrying horns, and the remainder large turpentine torches, we prepared to make our descent upon the camp-meeting in the character of the “Day of Judgment.” There was a large stray mule in the stable yard of the tavern, and we cruelly impressed him as a chief actor. By this time the religionists, exhausted by their long-continued exertions, had sunk into repose.
Saturating the mule's hide—which was long and shaggy—well with turpentine and tar, all but his head and neck, which we wrapped in a wet sheet, we led him to the mouth of the lane and applied a torch.
Quicker than lightning the fire spread over the body of the devoted animal. With a scream of terror and anguish it darted off up the lane in the direction of the camp, whilst we mounted, with our long mantles floating behind us, yelling like incarnate fiends, sounding our horns, and, our many torches flashing like meteors through the night, pressed on after it in hot and close pursuit.
On! on! rushed the mule, the flames swelling tumultuously on every side, eddying above the trees, and lighting the darkness with a vivid, lurid gleam; fiercer and faster than the dread tempest, carrying death in its track, sped he on under the terrible infliction.
We had nearly reached the camp-ground, when, as we approached the plantation of the widow H., which lay adjacent, we were discovered by an old negro, who, seated on the flat roof of his cabin, had gone fast asleep, watching through the long hours of the night, for fear that the end of the world, and the day of judgment, might slip upon him unawares.
Waking at the critical time our hellish cortege approached, he gazed a moment, with eyes stretched to their utmost capacity, upon the rapidly nearing volume of fire; then springing from the roof, he ran shrieking his dolesome summons to the camp: “White folks riz! De Laud be marsyful! De end of de warld an' de day of judgmen' hab pass, and here cums hell rite up de lane! Whoop! I love my Jesus! Master, cum!”
The meeting, awakened from their slumbers by his turmoil, rushed out, and when they too saw the approaching fire-breathing mass, they believed with the negro, that the day of judgment had passed, and Pandemonium—hot at that—was coming with its awful torments.
Supplications for mercy, screams of anguish, prayers and blasphemies, horror-stricken moans of the converts, the maniacal shouts of the conscience-stricken sinners, and the calm collected songs of the really righteous, swelled on the wind; mingled with the roaring of the flames, our piercing yells, discordant horns, and the horrible cries of the consuming animal.
The thousand echoes of the swamp took up the sound, and the wild-wood, if filled with screaming devils, could not have given back a more hideous outcry.
On! on! sped the victim—we in his train—in his haste to reach the waters of the “Loosa Chitta” and allay his sufferings. The stream was nearly reached; with ecstasy the poor brute beheld the glistening waters; he sped on with accelerated steps—one more spring, and he would find surcease of anguish 'neath their cooling waves. But he was destined never to reach them; he fell exhausted on the brink, vainly endeavouring, with extended neck, to allay his fiery thirst; as the flame, now bereft of fuel, sent up its last flickering ray, the poor mule, with a low reproachful moan, expired.
A RATTLESNAKE ON A STEAMBOAT.
Shortly before the usual time for wending my way North to the medical lectures, an opportunity was afforded me by an ingenious negro, who had caught the reptile asleep, of exchanging a well-worn blanket coat and two dimes,—principally in cash—for as fine a specimen of the Rattlesnake as ever delighted the eye or ear of a naturalist; nine inches across the small of the back, six feet seven-eighths of an inch in length, eyes like globular lightning, colours as gaudy as an Arkansas gal's apron, twenty-three rattles and a button, and a great propensity to make them heard, were the strong points of my purchase.
Designing him as a propitiatory offering to one of the professors, my next care was to furnish him with a fitting habitation. Nothing better presenting itself, I made him one out of a pine box, originally designed for shoes, by nailing thin slats transversely, so as neither to exclude air or vision, but sufficiently close, I thought, to prevent him from escaping. The day for my departure arrived, and I had his snakeship carried on board the boat destined to bear me to V————, where I would take an Ohio steamer.
Unfortunately for the quietude of my pet, on the Yazoo boat was a young cockney lady, who, hearing that there was a live rattlesnake on board, allowed her curiosity to overcome her maiden diffidence sufficiently to prefer a request that the young doctor “would make 'is hanimal oiler?” a process which the proverbial abstemiousness when in confinement of the “hanimal” was accomplishing rapidly without any intervention on my part. Politeness would not allow me to refuse, and as it was considerable of a novelty to the passengers, his snakeship was kept constantly stirred up, and his rattles had very little rest that trip.
The steamer at length swung alongside the wharf boat at V————, and transferring my baggage, I lounged about until the arrival of a boat would give me an opportunity of proceeding. The contents of the box were quickly discovered; and the snake had to undergo the same inflictions as the day previous—until, thoroughly vexed, I made them desist, and resolved thenceforth I would conceal his presence and allow him to travel as common baggage.
“The shades of night were falling fast,” as the steamer Congress came booming along, and, after a detention of a few minutes for passengers, proceeded on her way, obtaining none however except myself. The snake-box was placed with the other baggage on the cabin deck in front of the “social hall,” jam up, as luck would have it, against one of the chimneys, making the location unpleasantly warm. It was one of those clear, luminous nights in autumn, when not a cloud dims the azure, and the heavens so “beautifully blue,” (Alas! poor Neal,) are gleaming with their myriad stars, when the laughing breeze lifts the hair off the brow and presses the cheek with as soft a touch as the pulpy lips of a maiden in her first essay at kissing. The clear, croupy cough of the steamer was echoed back in prolonged asthmatic strains from the dark woods lining the river, like an army of cowled gigantic monks come from their cells to see a steamboat. Supper was over, and the beauty of the night had enticed the majority of the passengers from the cabin to the open deck.
A goodly number, myself amongst the rest, were seated in front of the social hall, smoking our cigars, and swapping yarns of all climes, sizes, nations, and colours.
Sitting a few yards from me, the most prominent personage of the group, smoking a chiboque, and regaling the crowd with the manner in which he choked a “Cobra de Capello” to death that crawled into his hammock in India, was an old English sailor, who, from his own account, had sailed over all the world, and through some parts of it.
Weighing the words down with a heavy ballast of oaths, he said he “wasn't afraid of anything in the snake line, from the sea serpent down to the original snake that tempted Eve.” I asked him if he had ever met the rattlesnake since he had been in America, thinking I would put his courage to the test on the morrow.
“Seen a rattlesnake? Yes, enough to sink a seventy-four? Went to Georgia on purpose to kill them. Pshaw! To think a man that had killed a boa constrictor, fair fight, should be fraid of a little noisy flirt of a snake that never grew bigger round than a marlin spike!”
At this moment the boat was running a bend near in shore, and the glare, of a huge fire at a wood-yard was thrown directly under the chair of the braggart, when, to my utter amazement I saw there, snugly coiled up, the huge proportions of my snake!
I was so astonished and horrified that I could neither speak nor move. I had left him securely fastened in his cage, and yet there he was at liberty, in his deadly coil, his eyes gleaming like living coals. The light was intercepted, and the foot of the sailor moving closer to the reptile it commenced its warning rattle, but slowly and irregularly, showing it was not fully aroused.
“What is that?” exclaimed a dozen voices.
The foot being withdrawn, the rattling ceased before its nature or source could be clearly traced.
“'Twas the steam escaping,” said one.
“A goose hissing,” said another.
“The wind.”
“A trick to scare the sailor,” thought a good many; but I knew it was a rattlesnake in his deadly coil!
The horror of that moment I shall not attempt to describe; every second I expected to hear the shriek of the sailor as the deadly fangs would penetrate his flesh, and I knew if a vein were stricken no power on earth could avail him, and I powerless to warn him of his danger.
“It sounded monstrous like a rattlesnake!” observed a passenger, “but there are no doctors or fool students on board, and nobody but cusses like them would be taking snakes 'bout.
“I was gwine up the Massassip wunst when a rattlesnake belonging to a medercal student on board, got out and bit one of the passengers; the poor crittur didn't live ten minutes, and the sawbone's 'prentice not much longer I reckon.”
My hair stood on end, for there was an earnestness about the man that told me he was not joking.
“You did'nt kill him, surely?” asked some one.
“Oh, no! we did'nt 'zactly kill him, sich as cuttin' his throat, or puttin' lead in his holler cimblin, for that would have been takin' the law inter our own hands; but we guv him five hundred lashes, treated him to a coat of tar and feathers, made a clean crop of one ear, and a swal-low-forked-slit-under-bit-and-half-crop of the other, an' put him out on a little island up to his mouth in water an' the river risin' a plum foot an hour!”
Not knowing but a similar fate might soon be mine, in agony, with the cold sweat streaming over me. I listened to this infernal recital of an instance of the summary punishment termed “Lynch Law,” to which the unavailability of the statute law so often drove the early settlers, and which, unfortunately for the fair character of the South and West, is not yet entirely abolished.
The sailor must again have moved his foot closer than agreeable to the snake, for his infernal rattling recommenced, and this time clear, loud, and continuous to the tutored ear, indicating great danger, the prelude to a fatal spring.
I shook off my lethargy, and shrieked out, “Don't move for your life! a light! for God's sake bring a light! Quick! quick!” None moved—thinking I was jesting.
“Mister,” spoke the sailor, “if it's a trick to scare me, you'll miss the figure with your child's rattle. Jes bring one of your real rattlesnakes along, and I'll show you whether he can frighten an English sailor or not.”
Hearing me calling so loudly for a light, the mate, a stalwart Irishman, came running up with a large torch, but hardly had he reached the deck, when he discovered the monster—his head drawn back ready for striking.
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“Snake! snake!” yelled he, punching at him with his glaring torch.
“Whereabouts, you lubber?” said the sailor, still suspecting a trick.
“Under your feet.”
The sailor looked down, and beheld the hideous reptile directly under his chair. With a loud yell, he made but one spring over the guards into the river.
“Rattlesnake!”
“Man overboard!”
“Stop her!”
“Out with the yawl!”
“Fire!”
“Snake!”
“She's sinking!”
“Shoot him!”