er suffering them to be whipped upon a
Sunday. However, I grew worse; whereupon one Mr. Sprague, that set up
for surgeon, but was more like a Boatswain turned landsman than that, or
than a Horse, came to me, and was for cutting off my arm, to prevent
mortification. There were two obstacles in the way of this operation's
performance; the first being that Mr. Sprague had no proper instruments
by him beyond a fleam and a syringe, with which, and with however good a
will, you can scarcely sever a Man's limb from his Body; and the next
that Mr. Sprague was not sober. Love for a young widow had driven him to
drinking, it was said; but I think that it was more the Love of Liquor
to which his bibulous backslidings were owing. 'Twas lucky for me that
he had nor saw nor tourniquet with him. It is true that he departed in
quest of some Carpenter's Tools, which he declared would do the job
quite as well; but, again to my good luck, the carpenter was as Rare a
pottlepot as he; and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and
drinking of it, and smoking of Tobacco, and playing at Skimming Dish
Hob, Spie the Market, Shove-halfpenny, Brag, Put, and Dilly Dally, and
other games that reminded them of the old country, for days and nights
together so that the old Negro woman that belonged to the carpenter,
seeing them gambling and drinking in the morning just as she had left
them drinking and gambling the overnight, stared with amazement like a
Mouse in a Throwster's mill. And by the time they had finished their
Rouse I was, through Heaven's kindness and the segacity of a Negro nurse
named Cubjack, cured. This woman, it is probable knew the secret of the
Poison from the bitter effects of which I was suffering. At all events,
she took me in hand, and by warm fomentations and bathings, and some
outward applications of herbs and anointed bandages, reduced the
swelling and restored my hand to its proper Form and Hue. At the end of
the week I was quite cured, and able to resume my journey back to
Kingston. I did not fail to express my gratitude to the hospitable
Planter and his Lady, and I gave the Nurse Cubjack half a dollar and a
silver tobacco-stopper that had been presented to me by Maum Buckey.

As a perverse destiny would have it, this Tobacco-stopper, this harmless
trinket, was the very means of my losing my situation, and parting in
anger from my Pumpkin-faced Patroness. Although I was, even at the
present dating, but a raw lad, she to