Ay, but she was a firm-nerved woman. If metempsychosis be a true doctrine, her spirit must have once animated, in the chivalrous times, a steel-clad knight of the doughtiest mould. She did not faint—did not vent a scream—but gazed upon its awfulness in silence, as if her eyes were riveted to it for ever.
We felt completely mortified to think that our well-laid scheme had failed—that we had failed to terrify her; when, to perfect our chagrin, she broke into a low laugh. We strode into the room, determined to express in words what our deeds had evidently failed to convey; when, ere she had become fully aware of our presence, we noticed her laughter was becoming hysterical. We spoke to her—shook her by the shoulder—but still she laughed on, increasing in vehemence and intensity. It began to excite attention in the lower apartments, and even in the street; and soon loud knocks and wondering exclamations began to alarm us for the consequences of our participation. We strove to take the fearful object from her, but she clung to it with the tenacity of madness, or a young doctor to his first scientific opinion. “She is gone demented!” we exclaimed; “we had better be leaving”—when a rush up the steps and through the passage, cut off our retreat, and told us the daughters and crowd were coming; but still the old lady laughed on, fiercer, faster, shriller than before. In rushed the crowd—a full charge for the room, impelled by the ramrod of curiosity—but ere they had time to discover the cause of the commotion, or make a demonstration, the widow ceased her laughter, and, putting on an expression of the most supreme contempt, coolly remarked:—“Excuse me, gentlemen, if I have caused you any inconvenience by my unusual conduct. I was just smiling aloud to think what fools these students made of themselves when they tried to scare me with a dead nigger's face, when I had slept with a drunken husband for twenty years!” The crowd mizzled; and we, too, I reckon, between that time and the next up-heaving of the sun.
THE MISSISSIPPI PATENT PLAN FOR PULLING TEETH.
I had just finished the last volume of Wistar's Anatomy, well nigh coming to a period myself with weariness at the same time, and with feet well braced up on the mantel-piece, was lazily surveying the closed volume which lay on my lap, when a hurried step in the front gallery aroused me from the revery into which I was fast sinking.
Turning my head as the office door opened, my eyes fell on the well-developed proportions of a huge flatboatsman who entered the room wearing a countenance, the expression of which would seem to indicate that he had just gone into the vinegar manufacture with a fine promise of success.
“Do you pull teeth, young one?” said he to me.
“Yes, and noses too,” replied I, fingering my slender moustache, highly indignant at the juvenile appellation, and bristling up by the side of the huge Kentuckian, till I looked as large as a thumb-lancet by the side of an amputating knife.
“You needn't get riled, young doc, I meant no insult, sarten, for my teeth are too sore to 'low your boots to jar' them as I swallered you down. I want a tooth pulled, can you manage the job? Ouch! criminy, but it hurts!”
“Yes, sir, I can pull your tooth. Is it an incisor, or a dens sapientiæ? one of the decidua, or a permanent grinder?”
“It's a sizer, I reckon. It's the largest tooth in my jaw, anyhow, you can see for yourself,” and the Kentuckian opening the lower half of his face, disclosed a set of teeth that clearly showed that his half of the alligator lay above.
“A molar requires extraction,” said I, as he laid his finger on the aching fang.
“A molar! well, I'll be cus't but you doctors have queer names for things! I reckon the next time I want a money-puss a molear will be extracted too; ouch! What do you ax for pulling teeth, doc? I want to git rid of the pesky thing.”
“A dollar, sir,” said I, pulling out the case of instruments and placing a chair for him.
“A dollar! dollar h—ll! do you think the Yazoo Pass is full of kegs of speshy? I'd see you mashed under a hogshead of pork 'fore I'd give you a dollar to pull the thing,” and picking up his hat, which he had dashed on the floor on his first entrance, off he started.
Seeing some fun in store, I winked at the rest of the students, whom the loudness of our conversation had called from the other rooms of the capacious office, and requested the subject to return.
“It's no use, stranger; I'd squirm all day fust 'fore I'd give you a dollar to pull every tooth in my head,” said he.
“Well, Mister, times are hard, and I'll pull your tooth for half a dollar,” said I, determined, if necessary, to give him pay before I would lose the pulling of his tooth.
“You'll have to come down a notch lower, doc I wants to interduce Kaintuck fashions on a Southern sile; and up thar, you can get a tooth pulled and the agur 'scribed for, fur a quarter.”
“Well, but recollect, it's harder to pull teeth here than it is in Kentucky.”
“Don't care a cuss; dimes is plentyer. I don't want to 'be stingy, though, doc, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I feels sorter bad from eatin' a mud-cat yesterday. I'll gin you a quarter to pull my tooth, if you'll throw in a dose of castor ile.”
“It's a bargain,” said I. “I couldn't possibly afford to do it so low if I didn't manufacture my own oil, and pull teeth on the 'Mississippi patent plan,' without the least pain.”
“Well, I'se struck a breeze of luck, sure, to get it 'stracted without hurtin', for I 'spected it would make all things pop, by hoecake.” And “all things did pop,” certain, as the poor devil found to his sorrow, before the “Mississippi patent plan” was over.
The room in which we were was the operating one of the office, where patients were examined, and surgical operations performed. It was furnished with all the usual appliances of such an establishment. In the middle of the room, securely fastened to the floor by screws, was a large arm-chair, with head-board and straps, to confine the body and limbs of the patient whilst the operator was at work, in such cases as required it. On either side of the house, driven into the wall, were a couple of iron bolts, to which were fastened blocks and pulleys, used when reducing old dislocations, when all milder means had failed. The chair, pulleys, and a small hand-vice were the apparatus intended to be used by me in the extraction of the Kentuckian's tooth, by the “Mississippi patent plan.”
The patient watched all our preparations—for I quickly let the other students into the plan of the intended joke—with great interest, and seemed hugely tickled at the idea of having his tooth pulled without pain “for a quarter,” and a dose of castor-oil extra.
Everything being ready, we invited the subject to take his seat in the operating chair, telling him it was necessary, agreeably to our mode of pulling teeth, that the body and arms should be perfectly quiet; that other doctors, who hadn't bought the right to use the 'patent plan,' used the pullikins, whilst I operated with the pulleys. I soon had him immoveably strapped to the chair, hand and foot. Introducing the hand-vice in his mouth, which, fortunately for me, was a large one, I screwed it fast to the offending tooth, then connecting it with the first cord of the pulleys and intrusting it to the hands of two experienced assistants, I was ready to commence the extraction. Giving the word, and singing, “Lord, receive this sinner's soul,” we pulled slowly, so as to let the full strain come on the neck bones gradually.
Though I live till every hair on my head is as hollow as a dry skull, I shall never forget the scene.
Clothed in homespun of the copperas hue, impotent to help himself, his body immoveably fixed to the chair,