“I say stimulate, the system is sinking,” screamed a tall, stout-looking student, as the Indian slid down towards the foot of the bed.
“Bleeding is manifestly and clearly indicated,” retorted a bitter rival in love as well as medicine, “his muscular action is too excessive,” as Tubba made an ineffectual effort to throw his body up to the top of the mosquito bar.
“Bleeding would be as good as murder,” said Number 1.
“Better cut his throat than stimulate him,” said Number 2.
“Pshaw!”
“Fudge!”
“Sir!”
“Fellow!”
“Fool!”
“Liar!”
Yim! Yim! and stomach-pump and brandy bottle flashed like meteors.
“Fight! fight! form a ring! fair play!”
“You're holding my friend.”
“You lie! You rascal!”
Vim! Vim! from a new brace of combatants.
“He's gouging my brother! I must help! foul play!”
“Let go my hair!” Vim! Vim! and a triplet went at it.
I stopped rubbing, and looked on with amazement. “Gentlemen, this is unprofessional! 'tis undignified! 'tis disgraceful! stop, I command you!” I yelled, but no one regarded me; some one struck me, and away I pitched into the whole lot promiscuously, having no partner, the patient dying on the bed whilst we were studying out his case.
“Fight! fight!” I heard yelled in the street, as I had finished giving a lick all round, and could hardly keep pitching into the mirror to whip my reflection, I wanted a fight so bad.
“Fight! fight! in D-5s back office!” and here came the whole town to see the fun.
“I command the peace!” yelled Dick Locks; “I'm the mayor.”
“And I'm the hoss for you!” screamed I, doubling him up with a lick in the stomach, which he replied to by laying me on my back, feeling very faint, in the opposite corner of the room.
“I command the peace!” continued Dick, flinging one of the combatants out of the window, another out of the door, and so on alternately, until the peace was preserved by nearly breaking its infringers to pieces.
“What in the devil, Mr. Tensas, does this mean?” said my preceptor, who at that moment came in; “what does all this fighting, and that drunken Indian lying in your bed, mean? have you all been drunk?”
“He has poisoned himself, sir, in my absence, with the solution of arsenic, which he took for whiskey; and as all the doctors were out of town, I called in the students, and they got to fighting over him whilst consulting;” I replied, very indignantly, enraged at the insinuation that we had been drinking.
“Poisoned with solution of arsenic, ha! ha! oh! lord! ha!” and my preceptor, throwing his burly form on the floor, rolled over and over, making the office ring with his laughter—“poisoned, ha! ha!”
“Get out of this, you drunken rascal!” said he to the dying patient, applying his horse-whip to him vigorously. It acted like a charm: giving a loud yell of defiance, the old Choctaw sprang into the middle of the floor.
“Whoop! whiskey lour! Injun big man, drunk heap. Whoop! Tubba big Injun heap!” making tracks for the door, and thence to the swamp.
The truth must out. The boys had got into the habit of making too free with my preceptor's whiskey; and to keep off all but the knowing one, he had labelled it, “Solution of Arsenic.”
A TIGHT RACE CONSIDERIN'.
During my medical studies, passed in a small village in Mississippi, I became acquainted with a family named Hibbs (a nom de plume of course), residing a few miles in the country. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Hibbs and son. They were plain, unlettered people, honest in intent and deed, but overflowing with that which amply made up for all their deficiencies of education, namely, warm-hearted hospitality, the distinguishing trait of southern character. They were originally from Virginia, from whence they had emigrated in quest of a clime more genial, and a soil more productive than that in which their fathers toiled. Their search had been rewarded, their expectations realized, and now, in their old age, though not wealthy in the “Astorian” sense, still they had sufficient to keep the “wolf from the door,” and drop something more substantial than condolence and tears in the hat that poverty hands round for the kind offerings of humanity.
The old man was like the generality of old planters, men whose ambition is embraced by the family or social circle, and whose thoughts turn more on the relative value of “Sea Island” and “Mastodon,” and the improvement of their plantations, than the “glorious victories of Whig-gery in Kentucky,” or the “triumphs of democracy in Arkansas.”
The old lady was a shrewd, active dame, kind-hearted and long-tongued, benevolent and impartial, making her coffee as strong for the poor pedestrian, with his all upon his back, as the broadcloth sojourner, with his “up-country pacer.” She was a member of the church, as well as the daughter of a man who had once owned a race-horse: and these circumstances gave her an indisputable right, she thought, to “let on all she knew,” when religion or horse-flesh was the theme. At one moment she would be heard discussing whether the new “circus rider,” (as she always called him,) was as affecting in Timothy as the old one was pathetic in Paul, and anon (not anonymous, for the old lady did everything above board, except rubbing her corns at supper), protecting dad's horse from the invidious comparisons of some visiter, who, having heard, perhaps, that such horses as Fashion and Boston existed, thought himself qualified to doubt the old lady's assertion that her father's horse “Shumach” had run a mile on one particular occasion. “Don't tell me,” was her never failing reply to their doubts, “Don't tell me 'bout Fashun or Bosting, or any other beating 'Shumach' a fair race, for the thing was unfesible; did'nt he run a mile a minute by Squire Dim's watch, which always stopt 'zactly at twelve, and did'nt he start a minute afore, and git out, jes as the long hand war givin' its last quiver on ketchin' the short leg of the watch? And didn't he beat everything in Virginny 'cept once? Dad and the folks said he'd beat then, if young Mr. Spotswood hadn't give 'old Swaga,' Shumach's rider, some of that 'Croton water,' (that them Yorkers is makin' sich a fuss over as bein' so good, when gracious knows, nothin' but what the doctors call interconception could git me to take a dose) and jis 'fore the race Swage or Shumach, I don't 'stinctly 'member which, but one of them had to 'let down,' and so dad's hoss got beat.”
The son I will describe in few words. Imbibing his parents' contempt for letters, he was very illiterate, and as he had not enjoyed the equivalent of travel, was extremely ignorant on all matters not relating to hunting or plantation duties. He was a stout, active fellow, with a merry twinkling of the eye, indicative of humour, and partiality for practical joking. We had become very intimate, he instructing me in “forest lore,” and I, in return, giving amusing stories, or, what was as much to his liking, occasional introductions to my hunting-flask.
Now that I have introduced the “Dramatis Personæ,” I will proceed with my story. By way of relaxation, and to relieve the tedium incident more or less to a student's life, I would take my gun, walk out to old Hibbs's, spend a day or two, and return refreshed to my books.
One fine afternoon I started upon such an excursion, and as I had upon a previous occasion missed killing a fine buck, owing to my having nothing but squirrel shot, I determined to go this time for the “antlered monarch,” by loading one barrel with fifteen “blue whistlers,”