Nature and Human Nature Part 12

"I wish you knew the doctor," said she; "I don't understand these things, but you are the only man I ever met that talked like him, only he hante the fun you have; but he enjoys fun beyond everything. I must say I rather like him, though he is odd, and I am sure you would, for you could comprehend many things he sais that I don't."

"It strikes me," sais I to myself, for I thought, puttin' this and that together; "her rather likin' him, and her desire to see his house, and her tryin' to flatter me that I talked like him; that perhaps, like her young Gaelic friend's brother who dreamed of the silver dollars, she might have had a dream of him."

So, sais I, "I have an idea, Jessie, that there is a subject, if he talked to you upon, you could understand."

"Oh, nonsense," said she, rising and laughing, "now do you go on board and get me your book; and I will go and see about dinner for the Doc--for my father and you."

Well, I held out my hand, and said,

"Good-morning, Miss Jessie. Recollect, when I bring you the book that you must pay the forfeit."

She dropt my hand in a minute, stood up as straight as a tragedy actress, and held her head as high as the Queen of Sheby. She gave me a look I shan't very easily forget, it was so full of scorn and pride.

"And you too, Sir," said she, "I didn't expect this of you," and then left the room.

"Hullo!" sais I, "who's half-cracked now; you or the doctor? it appears to me it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other;" and I took my hat, and walked down to the beach and hailed a boat.

About four I returned to the house, and brought with me, as I promised, the "Clockmaker." When I entered the room, I found Jessie there, who received me with her usual ease and composure. She was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a work-bag, the sides of which were made of the inner bark of the birch-tree, and beautifully worked with porcupine quills and moose hair.

"Well," sais I, "that is the most delicate thing I ever saw in all my born days. Creation, how that would be prized in Boston! How on earth did you learn to do that?" sais I.

"Why," said she, with an effort that evidently cost her a struggle, "my people make and barter them at the Fort at the north-west for things of more use. Indians have no money."

It was the first time I had heard so distinct an avowal of her American origin, and as I saw it brought the colour to her face, I thought I had discovered a clue to her natural pride, or, more properly, her sense of the injustice of the world, which is too apt to look down upon this mixed race with open or ill-concealed contempt.

The scurvey opens old sores, and makes them bleed afresh, and an unfeeling fellow does the same. Whatever else I may be, I am not that man, thank fortune. Indeed, I am rather a dab at dressin' bodily ones, and I won't turn my back in that line, with some simples I know of, on any doctor that ever trod in shoe-leather, with all his compounds, phials, and stipties.

In a gineral way, they know just as much about their business as a donkey does of music, and yet both of them practise all day. They don't make no improvements. They are like the birds of the air, and the beasts of the forest. Swallows build their nests year after year and generation after generation in the identical same fashion, and moose winter after winter, and century after century, always follow in each other's tracks. They consider it safer, it ain't so laborious, and the crust of the snow don't hurt their shins. If a critter is such a fool as to strike out a new path for himself, the rest of the herd pa.s.s, and leave him to worry on, and he soon hears the dogs in pursuit, and is run down and done for. Medical men act in the same manner.

Brother Eldad, the doctor, used to say to me when riggin' him on the subject:

"Sam, you are the most conceited critter I ever knew. You have picked up a few herbs and roots, that have some virtue in them, but not strength enough for us to give a place to in the pharmacopia of medicine."

"Pharmacopia?" sais I, "why, what in natur is that? What the plague does it mean? Is it bunk.u.m?"

"You had better not talk on the subject," said he, "if you don't know the tarms."

"You might as well tell me," sais I, "that I had better not speak English if I can't talk gibberish. But," sais I, "without joking, now, when you take the husk off that, and crack the nut, what do you call the kernel?"

"Why," sais he, "it's a dispensary; a book containin' rules for compoundin' medicines."

"Well then, it's a receipt-book, and nothin' else, arter all. Why the plague can't you call it so at once, instead of usin' a word that would break the jaw of a German?"

"Sam," he replied, "the poet says with great truth,

"'A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.'"

"Dear, dear," said I, "there is another strange sail hove in sight, as I am alive. What flag does 'Pierian' sail under?"

"The magpies," said he, with the air of a man that's a goin' to hit you hard. "It is a spring called Pierus after a gentleman of that name, whose daughters, that were as conceited as you be, were changed into magpies by the Muses, for challenging them out to sing. All pratin' fellows like you, who go about runnin' down doctors, ought to be sarved in the same way."

"A critter will never be run down," said I, "who will just take the trouble to get out of the way, that's a fact. Why on airth couldn't the poet have said Magpian Spring, then all the world would understand him. No, the lines would have had more sense if they had run this way:

"'A little physic is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or drink not of the doctor's spring.'"

Well, it made him awful mad. Sais he, "You talk of treating wounds as all unskilful men do, who apply balsams and trash of that kind, that half the time turns the wound into an ulcer; and then when it is too late the doctor is sent for, and sometimes to get rid of the sore, he has to amputate the limb. Now, what does your receipt book say?"

"It sais," sais I, "that natur alone makes the cure, and all you got to do, is to stand by and aid her in her efforts."

"That's all very well," sais he, "if nature would only tell you what to do, but nature leaves you, like a Yankee quack as you are, to guess."

"Well," sais I, "I am a Yankee, and I ain't above ownin' to it, and so are you, but you seem ashamed of your broughtens up, and I must say I don't think you are any great credit to them. Natur, though you don't know it, because you are all for art, does tell you what to do, in a voice so clear you can't help hearing it, and in language so plain you can't help understandin' it. For it don't use chain-shot words like 'pharmacopia' and 'Pierian,' and so on, that is neither Greek nor Latin, nor good English, nor vulgar tongue. And more than that, it shows you what to do. And the woods, and the springs, and the soil is full of its medicines and potions. Book doctrin' is like book farmin', a beautiful thing in theory, but ruination in practice."

"Well," said he, with a toss of his head, "this is very good stump oratory, and if you ever run agin a doctor at an election, I shouldn't wonder if you won it, for most people will join you in pullin' down your superiors."

That word superiors grigged me; thinks I, "My boy, I'll just take that expression, roll it up into a ball, and shy it back at you, in a way that will make you sing out 'Pen and ink,' I know. Well," sais I, quite mild (I am always mild when I am mad, a keen razor is always smooth), "have you any other thing to say about natur?"

"Yes," sais he, "do you know what healin' by the first intention is, for that is a nateral operation? Answer me that, will you?"

"You mean the second intention, don't you?" sais I.

"No," he replied, "I mean what I say."

"Well, Eldad," sais I, "my brother, I will answer both. First about the election, and then about the process of healin', and after that we won't argue no more, for you get so hot always, I am afraid you will hurt my feelins. First," sais I, "I have no idea of runnin' agin a doctor either at an election or elsewhere, so make yourself quite easy on that score, for if I did, as he is my superior, I should be sure to get the worst of it."

"How," said he, "Sam?" lookin' quite pleased, seein' me kinder knock under that way.

"Why dod drot it," sais I, "Eldad, if I was such a born fool as to run agin a doctor, his clothes would fill mine so chock full of asafoetida and brimstone, I'd smell strong enough to pysen a poll-cat. Phew! the very idea makes me sick; don't come any nearer, or I shall faint. Oh, no, I shall give my superiors a wide berth, depend upon it. Then,"

sais I, "secondly, as to healin' by the first intention, I have heard of it, but never saw it practised yet. A doctor's first intention is to make money, and the second is to heal the wound. You have been kind enough to treat me to a bit of poetry, now I won't be in your debt, so I will just give you two lines in return. Arter you went to Philadelphia to study, Minister used to make me learn poetry twice a week. All his books had pencil marks in the margin agin all the tid bits, and I had to learn more or less of these at a time according to their length; among others I remember two verses that just suit you and me.

"'To tongue or pudding thou hast no pretence, Learning thy talent is, but mine is SENSE.'"

"Sam," said he, and he coloured up, and looked choked with rage, "Sam."

"Dad," sais I, and it stopped him in a minute. It was the last syllable of his name, and when we was boys, I always called him Dad, and as he was older than me, I sometimes called him Daddy on that account. It touched him, I see it did. Sais I, "Dad, give me your daddle, fun is fun, and we may carry our fun too far," and we shook hands. "Daddy," sais I, "since I became an author, and honorary corresponding member of the Slangwhanger Society, your occupation and mine ain't much unlike, is it?"

"How?" said he.

"Why, Dad," sais I, "you cut up the dead, and I cut up the livin."

"Well," sais he, "I give less pain, at any rate, and besides, I do more good, for I make the patient leave a legacy to posterity, by furnishing instruction in his own body."

"You don't need to wait for dissection for the bequest," said I, "for many a fellow after amputation has said to you, 'a-leg-I-see.' But why is sawing off a leg an unprofitable thing? Do you give it up? Because it's always bootless."