nothing the matter with his statistics except the
handkerchief. I knew him for years, and he hadn't any. But it could have
been his nose. That would attract attention.

Beyond the road where the snakes sunned themselves was a dense young
thicket, and through it a dim-lighted path led a quarter of a mile; then
out of the dimness one emerged abruptly upon a level great prairie which
was covered with wild strawberry-plants, vividly starred with prairie
pinks, and walled in on all sides by forests. The strawberries were
fragrant and fine, and in the season we were generally there in the
crisp freshness of the early morning, while the dew-beads still sparkled
upon the grass and the woods were ringing with the first songs of the
birds.

Down the forest slopes to the left were the swings. They were made of
bark stripped from hickory saplings. When they became dry they were
dangerous. They usually broke when a child was forty feet in the air,
and this was why so many bones had to be mended every year. I had no
ill-luck myself, but none of my cousins escaped. There were eight of
them, and at one time and another they broke fourteen arms among them.
But it cost next to nothing, for the doctor worked by the year--$25 for
the whole family. I remember two of the Florida doctors, Chowning and
Meredith. They not only tended an entire family for $25 a year, but
furnished the medicines themselves. Good measure, too. Only the largest
persons could hold a whole dose. Castor-oil was the principal beverage.
The dose was half a dipperful, with half a dipperful of New Orleans
molasses added to help it down and make it taste good, which it never
did. The next standby was calomel; the next, rhubarb; and the next,
jalap. Then they bled the patient, and put mustard-plasters on him. It
was a dreadful system, and yet the death-rate was not heavy. The calomel
was nearly sure to salivate the patient and cost him some of his teeth.
There were no dentists. When teeth became touched with decay or were
otherwise ailing, the doctor knew of but one thing to do: he fetched his
tongs and dragged them out. If the jaw remained, it was not his fault.

Doctors were not called, in cases of ordinary illness; the family's
grandmother attended to those. Every old woman was a doctor, and
gathered her own medicines in the woods, and knew how to compound doses
that would stir the vitals of a cast-iron dog. And then there was the
"Indian doctor"; a grave savage, remna