Chapter XVI

TREATS OF MY EXPERIENCE AS A PHYSICIAN--I REACH THE MISSISSIPPI.

I awoke at sunrise, or rather Doctor Norris awoke me by a vigorous dig in the ribs with the point of his boot, and told me that breakfast was ready. I arose at once, washed my face, combed my hair, and then astonished the doctor by the vigor of my appetite.

During the meal he confided to me his plans for the future. He had laid out a route through Butler and Beaver counties to the State line, and thence through Ohio until winter set in.

“I make enough in summer to lay hup in winter,” he explained. “It’s an ’ealthy and hinvigorating life, and I like it. I’ve traveled over nearly all the States between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, ’ave ’ad my hups and downs, and I wouldn’t change places with a king.”

I rather doubted whether the doctor knew very much about kings, that he could afford to speak so positively, but I felt that it would be neither polite nor prudent to disagree with him.

“I dare say I shall like the life very well,” I said, quietly. “But--what am I expected to do?”

“You’ll be my assistant,” said the doctor, in a lofty voice, as if he was announcing my appointment to a cabinet position.

Then he went into details, and explained that I was to assist him in concocting and selling the wonderful remedies of which he was the inventor.

This duty included filling bottles, pasting on labels, carrying his baggage, making his fires, and several other minor matters which he could not recall just then.

“Ve’ll camp out like this most of the time,” he added. “Hotels is hexpensive, and I never stops at ’em, unless it’s raining or I’m going to sell in the town. You von’t mind that, vill you?”

I was more than delighted at the prospect, and I said so.

“This man,” I told myself, “is evidently a great traveler, and he is going West. If I stick to him my fortune is made.”

It did not take the doctor long to pack up his traps, and, dividing them between us, we journeyed along very agreeably.

When we arrived in Butler we went to a hotel, and there, in the seclusion of our room, the doctor manufactured three dozen bottles of the balsam, as many of the toothache drops and twice as many boxes of the tooth-powder.

At this distance of time I cannot recall the ingredients of these justly celebrated remedies, but I can cheerfully testify to their harmlessness.

The balsam was composed of two or three simple aromatic oils, the toothache drops was merely a diluted essence of the oil of cloves, and the wonderful tooth-powder chalk powdered and scented.

The labels for the various compounds the doctor carried in his oilcloth bag, and the bottles, boxes and various ingredients he purchased at the village drug stores.

I am almost ashamed to tell you what enormous profits he made on his sales, and will only mention that he once told me that the bottle and label formed nine-tenths of the cost of the Golden Balsam, which retailed at one dollar.

In these days the street vender of physic is an ordinary sight, but a quarter of a century ago he was almost unknown outside of the largest cities.

After being a month in the company of Doctor Norris I easily understood why he followed such a life. In the town of Butler two days’ sales netted him sixty dollars, and he made nearly as much in Beaver.

He was not always so successful, but, taking one week with another, I judged that he cleared at least fifty dollars, which was a bank president’s salary in those days.

His methods were such as are in use among this class of gentry all the world over.

Having prepared his stock in trade, he would gravely walk down the main street, followed by your humble servant.

Halting on the most prominent corner, he and I would arrange the boxes and bottles in attractive pyramids on the top of a box or a barrel, taking as much time as possible, so as to attract the attention of the passers-by.

Having achieved this object, the doctor would mount on a soap-box, so as to raise himself above the crowd, and begin his harangue.

He always began gravely, and not until he had made several sales did he venture on a joke or a witticism, although he had a plentiful stock of cheap wit, such as crowds delight in.

Another thing: When he spoke in public he used excellent English, and the cockney dialect entirely disappeared. He never explained this to me, but I suppose he was like an actor on the stage when addressing a crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he would say, in calm and measured tones, “Shakespeare has said, ‘Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it!’ and he was right. Medicinal drugs are pernicious, even when given by a practiced physician, but when administered by quacks, it is little short of murder. Now, in my medicines I do not give you strange and deadly drugs. The articles I use are all known to you” (this was strictly true), “the mode of preparation only being a secret. No pain, no danger in their use, absolutely harmless to the smallest child, yet so powerful that the most deadly ailments yield to their power.”

Thus the doctor talked on for fifteen minutes, taking the crowd into his confidence in a learned and fatherly way, until some fellow bashfully thrust forward a coin, and then the money rolled in.

The doctor was now in his element; he was witty, he cracked jokes, he told stories, and even indulged in snatches of song, and he rarely failed to hold his audience until his stock was exhausted.

This operation sometimes consumed three or four hours, and sometimes his eloquence was wasted. But at all times he was cheerful and polite, and good and bad fortune seemed alike to him.

I thought then, and I still think, that he was a remarkable man; and I am sure that he treated me very kindly. He paid me a very liberal salary of ten dollars a month, and whenever he had an unusually good day, gave me an extra dollar.

All of this money I carefully stowed away in my belt for a rainy day, which I felt sure would come. And my experience did not deceive me.

After leaving Pennsylvania, we traveled through the small towns of Ohio until near the middle of December, as it was a very open winter, and it was nearly Christmas before the cold and snow drove us into winter quarters in Toledo.

The doctor intended to treat himself to a three months’ rest, and for that purpose hired two rooms and kept bachelor’s hall, and invited me to keep him company.

I received no wages; but as he was to bear all expenses, I willingly agreed to the arrangement.

These three months were absolutely uneventful, and about the first of April we started out again.

The doctor had laid out a new route for this season. We traveled across country by stage to Keokuk, Iowa, intending to travel up the river as far as St. Paul, and then work eastward thorough Wisconsin and Michigan, and close the season at Detroit.

But we never carried out our programme. My cruel fate pursued me--or was it punishment for my foolishness?--and at Davenport I was once more cast adrift.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

INTERNATIONAL LESSON--FOR MAY 29.

Exodus 14:19-21. Golden Text--Isaiah 43:2.

Central Subject--THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

BY REV. D. P. KIDDER, D.D.