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no better medicine than that of which I learned in my first day's practice.

This day was typical of hundreds of days, when we drove briskly, for five or six miles, over the well-kept pikes, and then turned to some "dirt road," to follow it perhaps for three or four miles, sometimes fairly good in dry weather, until the red dust choked us, then deep in mud, when the frost broke up the ground. I can hear it now, the slow suck of the wheel out of the mud, the splash, the jar, as we sank to the hub in some deep hole. No better trade could be followed than that of blacksmith and wheelwright. Wheels would go down into that mud and come out crumpled like paper. Slowly, on three wheels and a rail under the axle, taken from the snake fence, we would crawl back to the pike, where we would find some sort of wheel to take us home.

But if the roads were bad, they were beautiful. Deep groves of hickory, up and down which scampered gray squirrels, while their poor relations, the chip munks, flashed along the rail fences, and in a twinkling were gone. In wide woods of oak and chestnut the jay birds would scream and show their colors, like an angry woman shaking a petticoat; the catbird would sing from the walnut tree, while off in the field would be heard the red-headed woodpecker, tapping, tapping with insistent stroke.

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the water was so deep as to cover the floor of the buggy, when I had to sit on my feet, and the Doctor placed his on the dashboard. Then would come a queer feeling as the jar of the horse's motion suddenly ceased, and it was swimming.

I saw a vast deal of practice, I assure you. Beside children's diseases, we had quinsy sore throats and congestion of the lungs, as well as pneumonia, and what I wrongly pronounced "Chilson fever." But generally we diagnosed the case as liver trouble, and treated accordingly. Sometimes we gave calomel in pills, but we thought we got better effects from powders; the pills were so large and were so unevenly covered with a bitter powder, — and, though I became expert in rolling them, still they would bulge and stick and gag the people, who either could not swallow them, or else had later accidents, that, as I say, we thought best of powders. And when I say powders, have you in mind a dainty paper with a pinch of salt, as it were, within its ingenious folds? Go to! Do you think we were mere homoeopathists? We gave it in a teaspoon filled from a frequently replenished bottle carried in the Doctor's capacious side pocket!

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This was the favorite medicine with patient and physician. No more grateful compliment came to the professional ear than the familiar "I tell you, Doctor, that last dose took hold right smart," received with the complacent "Well, I reckoned it would." When salivation ensued, and the poor wretch had not a yellow tooth that did not rattle as he praised our skill, and the rebellious stomach refused to assimilate juicy spare ribs and the hot Sally Lunn, we gave him bumpers of bicarbonate of soda mixed with Brown's Essence of Jamaica Ginger. He was taught that the disease was working out of the system, and that the ghastly symptoms were the inevitable sequelae of a mysterious dispensation, which they probably were!,

Calomel was our favorite, I must admit; but we had others. I think jalap stood next highest in our estimation. We gave it once with curious results. As I have retired from practice, I am happy to share the results of my experience with my confrères.

We were called to see a little boy suffering with inflammatory rheumatism. Poor little chap, when asked what the trouble was, he said he had "a short leg." We cut long strips of linen, and having steeped them in a cold solution of bicarbonate of soda, wrapped the limb firmly, and gave directions to have them changed frequently. I dare say we left a little paregoric to ease the pain at night, and started to go.

But before we reached

the door, the Doctor paused and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. It was unusual, for, as a rule, he was quick in his decisions. Then he drew forth a bottle of jalap and returned to the bed. "Which like best, scraped apple or currant

do

you

jelly?"

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"I hate 'em both!" cried the poor little mite, who knew what was coming. Perhaps we decided on scraped apple. This was my department. I scraped out a little and spread it in a spoon, then the powder was poured on, and after that there was a covering of apple, but the weight would cause the powder to ooze out on the sides, so that an idiot would not have been deceived. The child, small blame, would not open his mouth. The Doctor held the nose, compressing the nostrils so that the lips must open to gasp, then the spoon was slipped in, and being deftly turned upside down and slowly withdrawn, not a particle of this precious dose was lost.

When we paid our next morning visit, the child looked to me as one dead, but the Doctor felt his pulse and skin and said he was better. But the mother was angry. She said suddenly: "That child liked to died in the night. He nigh had a spasm. He was that sick to his stomach he could n't speak, and I

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"Well," said the Doctor slowly, "I've seen a heap of rheumatism in my time, and the best thing for it is exercise. That child could n't exercise, and that little jalap just stretched all his muscles a bit when it was acting, and now he's going to get well. He don't need any more medicine, but keep those wet bandages on his leg."

We gave bushels of quinine, in tea to women, in whiskey, more plentiful than tea, to the men. I have spoken of calomel as the trump card which we played in the game with death, but I am not sure that we did not oftener take the trick with the lancet. We were hampered by no modern septicæmic fears. The little instrument, arranged with an ingenious spring to prevent its opening, was carried in the vest pocket along with a plug of tobacco, a toothpick, and odds and ends of every sort. I doubt if there was a day we did not find use for it. We bled for headaches and fevers; we bled for congestion of the lungs; we bled the negroes for their ills, generally designated by the generic term "misery."

The first day there was bloodletting I was given a basin, and told if I dropped it I should be bled. I did not drop it, but had I been bled, I doubt if blood could have been found in my scared little body! Once we bled a negro woman who must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds. I can see now her great arm like polished ebony! The Doctor asked me if I knew what blue blood was. I said I did.

"I suppose you think you have it?" With dignity, I answered, "Yes." He laughed and said, "Well, I'm going to show you real blue blood." And he did!

I squatted on the floor, caught the blood in a yellow earthen dish, while the Doctor - his back to the patient-began one of his marvelous stories to an admiring group collected on the back

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porch. I caught, "We've got the clearest air in the world right here in this county. Why, last October I was on the Blue Ridge, and, standing on Black Rock, I looked to the town, ten miles away as the crow flies, and on the roof of the Lutheran Church I saw two pigeons, and the air was so clear I could make out which was white and which was purple!" —A delighted murmur of "Oh, Doctor!"—"It's the truth; I'll explain it." But he never did.

The poor soul I was watching had by this time lost so much blood that the ebony had become like ashes, her head lolled from side to side, and I heard her murmur, "I'se going, honey, for shore." I burst into tears, the Doctor turned quickly, called for whiskey, bound up the arm, and the danger was over. May I never come so near to murder again.

It was a strenuous life the old man led. I shared only the forenoon practice, but often I saw him pale and heavy-eyed in the morning, and learned that he had driven twenty miles in the night. Yet he was always cheerful.

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"Why, it has more eyes than you have, and if you don't believe me, I'll bet you a 'fip and a bit,' and leave it to your mother."

This seemed easy. My mother looked startled, but made no criticism, and the fascinating sport continued till I owed sixty-five cents. I saved with great difficulty seventeen cents, and was then compelled by my mother to offer it as an installment. The dear old man looked at me a moment with shining eyes, and said,

"Tell your mother the reason I'm rich is because I never receive partial payments."

I repeated the message, not understanding one word of it, but it was the end of my career as a gambler!

Of course we talked politics, and I understood the Doctor to say that he was an old "Lion Whig." So that I soon announced that I, too, belonged to that royal party. When the great election · the most momentous of all elections was held, I repaired to the stable of the Washington House, where the embryonic statesmen, from ten years old to fifteen, had decided to vote. There was only one question asked by the tellers:

"Breckinridge or Douglas?"

I answered," Bell and Everett." "Are you crazy or sassy?" they cried. "I'm an old Lion Whig!" I roared. “Oh, you are, are you? Well, we 'll Lion Whig you." And they did!

When I recounted with tears my experience to the Doctor, he shook his head.

"I reckon, sonny, now they've elected that Black Republican Abe Lincoln, you and I are the last of the 'old Lion Whigs.'" And as usual he was right.

Soon after this there was a bitter storm of sleet, and there was a case that We kept us till late in the afternoon. had dinner at the farmhouse. I was kept in the kitchen with the men, while the women and the Doctor stayed upstairs. All was very still, and later moaning and words of cheer, then, a great cry that made my heart stand still. Finally the Doctor came.

"Is it over?" said a man who had not spoken all day.

"Yes, she'll pull through. It was twins, and the chloroform gave out."

But there was no buoyancy in his voice, and as he drove home he shivered more than once. The next morning he was too ill to move, and Lucy was led back to the stable.

It was etiquette with us that when a

doctor fell ill, the oldest physician in the town should have charge of the case, while all the others came in in consultation. There were thirteen in this town of less than three thousand inhabitants, and they all went through that sickroom, following Dr. Ireland, the dean, and looked wise. Then the Doctor sent for me. He said there was no luck in odd numbers, and, more than that, I understood his constitution! I spent many hours with him, and we talked of everything except medicine.

But he did not get well.

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All the old fun flushed his face as he

said,

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Doctor, it would n't be etiquette without Dr. Ireland. Besides, dear little boy, burnt brandy would n't help me now." The next day he died.

The town was as full of spring carts and buggies and saddle horses the day he was buried as if it had been the day of the county fair. The negroes, breaking the bonds of their Protestantism, prayed aloud in the streets for his soul,

and the clergyman said:—

"This man sought neither riches nor honor, but gave himself for others. Fifty years from now his name may be a faint memory, but I think he was one of those whom God depends upon to keep the world good, and to bless little children by his gentleness and purity and cheerfulness."

And all the people said, "Amen."
Leighton Parks.

BOOKS NEW AND OLD.

BYWAYS OF LITERATURE.

MR. HENRY JAMES once said of Thoreau, "He was more than provincial; he was parochial." The remark has so much the air of finality, it is so obviously a statement of fact, that one's first instinct is to bolt it without ado. Presently, it may be, that mild inward monitor which does so much to conserve the eupeptic mind suggests that fact is not truth, and that the morsel will bear reconsideration. What is it to be provincial? and what is it supposed to do or undo for a man or his work? One has heard it said that London itself is provincial. Certainly Mr. James's cosmopolitanism has not kept him from dwelling among and upon a class of Londoners whose local preoccupation, if this were the point at

issue, is quite equal to that of a New England villager. But local preoccupation is not the point; to be provincial is to be in a sense unpresentable, to hail patently, as we may fancy Mr. James saying, from an ineligible somewhere.

The cosmopolitan idea has apparently given us a new standard of eligibility. People used to take the grand tour for their souls' good; but they "dragged at each remove a lengthening chain." They traveled to become more worthy of staying at home. They did not dream that absenteeism would come to be held actually a state of grace. They would hardly have seen the point of that witty comment upon Mr. James, "To be truly cosmopolitan a man must

nous.

be at home even in his own country." It is something, after all, to be indigeThoreau had his own simple philosophy as to home-staying. "There is no more tempting novelty," he writes, "than this new November. No going to Europe or to another world is to be named with it. Give me the old familiar walk, post-office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith which does not know when it is beaten. We'll go nutting once more. We'll pluck the nut of the world and crack it in the winter evenings. Theatres and all other sightseeing are puppet-shows in comparison. I will take another walk to the cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds.

I.

It is surprising how many books which the world preserves are built upon local observation and anecdote. Natural historians have not a few to their credit; there seems to be some property in this gentle trade which gives especial kindliness to the pen. The printed word of a Thoreau, a Jefferies, a John Muir, has a richness and mellowness which seem to come direct from soil and sun. Even when a naturalist's facts are discredited by later authority, his writing is likely to be cherished as literature. Gilbert White was one of the few careful observers of his time, and is still much more than a name to naturalists, his swallow speculations to the contrary. Nevertheless, the editor of the latest reprint puts the case for White in a way which can hardly be disputed: "Tis as a literary monument, therefore, I hold, that we ought above all things to regard these rambling and

1 The Natural History of Selborne. By GILBERT WHITE. Edited by GRANT ALLEN, and illustrated by W. H. NEW. London and New York: John Lane. 1903.

VOL. XCIII. - NO. 558.

36

amiable Letters. They enshrine for us in miniature the daily life of an amateur naturalist in the days when the positions of parson, sportsman, country gentleman and man of science were not yet incongruous." Mr. Allen has treated the text successfully from this point of view, marking here and there a point of error, but for the most part confining his notes to the suggestion of additional facts about the man or the place.

2

Richard Jefferies was White's most notable English successor. His work has not the background of a serene existence like White's. It is more tense, more imaginative, more consciously endowed with the quality of literature. Wild Life in a Southern County, one of the best of Jefferies's books, has just been reprinted in Boston, with an unfortunate change of title. As a study of the author's native habitat it bears some analogy to Thoreau's Walden. Its range of subject is broader, however, for Jefferies was as keen an observer of rustic human types and manners as of the objects more commonly admitted to be within the province of the natural historian. He was the son of a Wiltshire farmer; early proved himself unfit for farm life, read much, became a journalist, and wrote a series of worthless novels; at last, as if by chance, hit upon his right vein, produced the five or six books upon which his reputation rests, and died at thirty-nine. His distinguishing trait is a sort of brooding quietude, a gentle poignancy of attitude toward the visible world and its creatures. He is, it seems, never very far. from the elegiac mood: "Just outside the trench, almost within reach, there lies a small white something, half hidden by the grass. It is the skull of a hare, bleached by the winds and the

2 An English Village. By RICHARD JEFFERIES. With Illustrations by CLIFTON JOHNSON, and an Introduction by HAMILTON W. MABIE. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1903.

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