Well, sir, I never was so surprised in all my life before. Fur I hadn"t had holt on him more"n a minute before I seen I"m stronger than Hank is. I throwed him, and he hit the ground with considerable of a jar, and then I put my knee in the pit of his stomach and churned it a couple.
And I thinks to myself what a fool I must of been fur better"n a year, because I might of done this any time. I got him by the ears and I slammed his head into the gravel a few times, him a-reaching fur my throat, and a-pounding me with his fists, but me a-taking the licks and keeping holt. And I had a mighty contented time fur a few minutes there on top of Hank, chuckling to myself, and batting him one every now and then fur luck, and trying to make him holler it"s enough. But Hank is stubborn and he won"t holler. And purty soon I thinks, what am I going to do? Fur Hank will be so mad when I let him up he"ll jest natcherally kill me, without I kill him. And I was scared, because I don"t want neither one of them things to happen. Whilst I was thinking it over, and getting scareder and scareder, and banging Hank"s head harder and harder, some one grabs me from behind.
They was two of them, and one gets my collar and one gets the seat of my pants, and they drug me off"n him. Hank, he gets up, and then he sets down sudden on a horse block and wipes his face on his sleeve, which they was considerable blood come onto the sleeve.
I looks around to see who has had holt of me, and it is two men. One of them looks about seven feet tall, on account of a big plug hat and a long white linen duster, and has a beautiful red beard. In the road they is a big stout road wagon, with a canopy top over it, pulled by two hosses, and on the wagon box they is a strip of canvas. Which I couldn"t read then what was wrote on the canvas, but I learnt later it said, in big print:
SIWASH INDIAN SAGRAW. NATURE"S UNIVERSAL MEDICINAL SPECIFIC. DISCOVERED BY DR. HARTLEY L. KIRBY AMONG THE ABORIGINES OF OREGON.
On account of being so busy, neither Hank nor me had hearn the wagon come along the road and stop. The big man in the plug hat, he says, or they was words to that effect, jest as serious:
"Why are you mauling the aged gent?"
"Well," says I, "he needed it considerable."
"But," says he, still more solemn, "the good book says to honour thy father and thy mother."
"Well," I says, "mebby it does and mebby it don"t. But HE ain"t my father, nohow. And he ain"t been getting no more"n his come-uppings."
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," the big man remarks, very serious.
Hank, he riz up then, and he says:
"Mister, be you a preacher? "Cause if you be, the sooner you have druv on, the better fur ye. I got a grudge agin all preachers."
That feller, he jest looks Hank over ca"am and easy and slow before he answers, and he wrinkles up his face like he never seen anything like Hank before. Then he fetches a kind o" aggervating smile, and he says:
"Beneath a shady chestnut tree The village blacksmith stands.
The smith, a pleasant soul is he With warts upon his hands--"
He stares at Hank hard and solemn and serious while he is saying that poetry at him. Hank fidgets and turns his eyes away. But the feller touches him on the breast with his finger, and makes him look at him.
"My honest friend," says the feller, "I am NOT a preacher. Not right now, anyhow. No! My mission is spreading the glad tidings of good health. Look at me," and he swells his chest up, and keeps a-holt of Hank"s eyes with his"n. "You behold before you the discoverer, manufacturer, and proprietor of Siwash Indian Sagraw, nature"s own remedy for Bright"s Disease, rheumatism, liver and kidney trouble, catarrh, consumption, bronchitis, ring-worm, erysipelas, lung fever, typhoid, croup, dandruff, stomach trouble, dyspepsia--" And they was a lot more of "em.
"Well," says Hank, sort o" backing up as the big man come nearer and nearer to him, jest natcherally bully-ragging him with them eyes, "I got none of them there complaints."
The doctor he kind o" snarls, and he brings his hand down hard on Hank"s shoulder, and he says:
"There are more things betwixt Dan and Beersheba than was ever dreamt of in thy sagacity, Romeo!" Or they was words to that effect, fur that doctor was jest plumb full of Scripter quotations. And he sings out sudden, giving Hank a shove that nearly pushes him over: "Man alive!" he yells, "you DON"T KNOW what disease you may have! Many"s the strong man I"ve seen rejoicing in his strength at the dawn of day cut down like the gra.s.s in the field before sunset," he says.
Hank, he"s trying to look the other way, but that doctor won"t let his eyes wiggle away from his"n. He says very sharp:
"Stick out your tongue!"
Hank, he sticks her out.
The doctor, he takes some gla.s.ses out"n his pocket and puts "em on, and he fetches a long look at her. Then he opens his mouth like he was going to say something, and shuts it agin like his feelings won"t let him. He puts his arm across Hank"s shoulder affectionate and sad, and then he turns his head away like they was some one dead in the fambly. Finally, he says:
"I thought so. I saw it. I saw it in your eyes when I first drove up. I hope," he says, very mournful, "I haven"t come too late!"
Hank, he turns pale. I was getting sorry fur Hank myself. I seen now why I licked him so easy. Any one could of told from that doctor"s actions Hank was as good as a dead man already. But Hank, he makes a big effort, and he says:
"Shucks! I"m sixty-eight years old, doctor, and I hain"t never had a sick day in my life." But he was awful uneasy too.
The doctor, he says to the feller with him: "Looey, bring me one of the sample size."
Looey brung it, the doctor never taking his eyes off"n Hank. He handed it to Hank, and he says:
"A whiskey gla.s.s full three times a day, my friend, and there is a good chance for even you. I give it to you, without money and without price."
"But what have I got?" asts Hank.
"You have spinal meningitis," says the doctor, never batting an eye.
"Will this here cure me?" says Hank.
"It"ll cure ANYTHING," says the doctor.
Hank he says, "Shucks," agin, but he took the bottle and pulled the cork out and smelt it, right thoughtful. And what them fellers had stopped at our place fur was to have the shoe of the nigh hoss"s off hind foot nailed on, which it was most ready to drop off. Hank, he done it fur a regulation, dollar-size bottle and they druv on into the village.
Right after supper I goes down town. They was in front of Smith"s Palace Hotel. They was jest starting up when I got there. Well, sir, that doctor was a sight. He didn"t have his duster onto him, but his stove-pipe hat was, and one of them long Prince Alferd coats nearly to his knees, and shiny shoes, but his vest was cut out holler fur to show his biled shirt, and it was the pinkest shirt I ever see, and in the middle of that they was a diamond as big as Uncle Pat Hickey"s wen, what was one of the town sights. No, sir; they never was a man with more genuine fashionableness sticking out all over him than Doctor Kirby. He jest fairly wallered in it.
I hadn"t paid no pertic"ler attention to the other feller with him when they stopped at our place, excepting to notice he was kind of slim and blackhaired and funny complected. But I seen now I orter of looked closeter. Fur I"ll be dad-binged if he weren"t an Injun! There he set, under that there gasoline lamp the wagon was all lit up with, with moccasins on, and beads and sh.e.l.ls all over him, and the gaudiest turkey tail of feathers rainbowing down from his head you ever see, and a blanket around him that was gaudier than the feathers. And he shined and rattled every time he moved.
That wagon was a hull opry house to itself. It was rolled out in front of Smith"s Palace Hotel without the hosses. The front part was filled with bottles of medicine. The doctor, he begun business by taking out a long bra.s.s horn and tooting on it. They was about a dozen come, but they was mostly boys. Then him and the Injun picked up some banjoes and sung a comic song out loud and clear. And they was another dozen or so come. And they sung another song, and Pop Wilkins, he closed up the post-office and come over and the other two veterans of the Grand Army of the Republicans that always plays checkers in there nights come along with him. But it wasn"t much of a crowd, and the doctor he looked sort o" worried. I had a good place, right near the hind wheel of the wagon where he rested his foot occasional, and I seen what he was thinking. So I says to him:
"Doctor Kirby, I guess the crowd is all gone to the circus agin to-night." And all them fellers there seen I knowed him.
"I guess so, Rube," he says to me. And they all laughed "cause he called me Rube, and I felt kind of took down.
Then he lit in to tell about that Injun medicine. First off he told how he come to find out about it. It was the father of the Injun what was with him had showed him, he said. And it was in the days of his youthfulness, when he was wild, and a cowboy on the plains of Oregon.
Well, one night he says, they was an awful fight on the plains of Oregon, wherever them is, and he got plugged full of bullet holes. And his hoss run away with him and he was carried off, and the hoss was going at a dead run, and the blood was running down onto the ground. And the wolves smelt the blood and took out after him, yipping and yowling something frightful to hear, and the hoss he kicked out behind and killed the head wolf and the others stopped to eat him up, and while they was eating him the hoss gained a quarter of a mile. But they et him up and they was gaining agin, fur the smell of human blood was on the plains of Oregon, he says, and the sight of his mother"s face when she ast him never to be a cowboy come to him in the moonlight, and he knowed that somehow all would yet be well, and then he must of fainted and he knowed no more till he woke up in a tent on the plains of Oregon. And they was an old Injun bending over him and a beautiful Injun maiden was feeling of his pulse, and they says to him:
"Pale face, take hope, fur we will doctor you with Siwash Injun Sagraw, which is nature"s own cure fur all diseases."
They done it. And he got well. It had been a secret among them there Injuns fur thousands and thousands of years. Any Injun that give away the secret was killed and rubbed off the rolls of the tribe and buried in disgrace upon the plains of Oregon. And the doctor was made a blood brother of the chief, and learnt the secret of that medicine. Finally he got the chief to see as it wasn"t Christian to hold back that there medicine from the world no longer, and the chief, his heart was softened, and he says to go.
"Go, my brother," he says, "and give to the pale faces the medicine that has been kept secret fur thousands and thousands of years among the Siwash Injuns on the plains of Oregon."
And he went. It wasn"t that he wanted to make no money out of that there medicine. He could of made all the money he wanted being a doctor in the reg"lar way. But what he wanted was to spread the glad tidings of good health all over this fair land of ourn, he says.
Well, sir, he was a talker, that there doctor was, and he knowed more religious sayings and poetry along with it, than any feller I ever hearn. He goes on and he tells how awful sick people can manage to get and never know it, and no one else never suspicion it, and live along fur years and years that-a-way, and all the time in danger of death. He says it makes him weep when he sees them poor diluted fools going around and thinking they is well men, talking and laughing and marrying and giving in to marriage right on the edge of the grave. He sees dozens of "em in every town he comes to. But they can"t fool him, he says. He can tell at a glance who"s got Bright"s Disease in their kidneys and who ain"t. His own father, he says, was deathly sick fur years and years and never knowed it, and the knowledge come on him sudden like, and he died.
That was before Siwash Injun Sagraw was ever found out about. Doctor Kirby broke down and cried right there in the wagon when he thought of how his father might of been saved if he was only alive now that that medicine was put up into bottle form, six fur a five-dollar bill so long as he was in town, and after that two dollars fur each bottle at the drug store.
He unrolled a big chart and the Injun helt it by that there gasoline lamp, so all could see, turning the pages now and then. It was a map of a man"s inside organs and digestive ornaments and things. They was red and blue, like each organ"s own disease had turned it, and some of "em was yaller. And they was a long string of diseases printed in black hanging down from each organ"s picture. I never knowed before they was so many diseases nor yet so many things to have "em in.