by Don Marquis
He stares at Hank hard and solemn and serious while he is saying thatpoetry at him. Hank fidgets and turns his eyes away. But the fellertouches 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 rightnow, anyhow. No! My mission is spreading the glad tidings of goodhealth. Look at me," and he swells his chest up, and keeps a-holtof Hank's eyes with his'n. "You behold before you the discoverer,manufacturer, and proprietor of Siwash Indian Sagraw, nature's ownremedy 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 alot more of 'em.
"Well," says Hank, sort o' backing up as the big man come nearer andnearer to him, jest natcherally bully-ragging him with them eyes, "I gotnone of them there complaints."
The doctor he kind o' snarls, and he brings his hand down hard on Hank'sshoulder, and he says:
"There are more things betwixt Dan and Beersheba than was ever dreamtof in thy sagacity, Romeo!" Or they was words to that effect, fur thatdoctor was jest plumb full of Scripter quotations. And he sings outsudden, giving Hank a shove that nearly pushes him over: "Man alive!" heyells, "you DON'T KNOW what disease you may have! Many's the strong manI've seen rejoicing in his strength at the dawn of day cut down like thegrass in the field before sunset," he says.
Hank, he's trying to look the other way, but that doctor won't let hiseyes wiggle away from his'n. He says very sharp:
"Stick out your tongue!"
Hank, he sticks her out.
The doctor, he takes some glasses out'n his pocket and puts 'em on, andhe fetches a long look at her. Then he opens his mouth like he was goingto say something, and shuts it agin like his feelings won't let him. Heputs his arm across Hank's shoulder affectionate and sad, and then heturns 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. Ihope," he says, very mournful, "I haven't come too late!"
Hank, he turns pale. I was getting sorry fur Hank myself. I seen now whyI licked him so easy. Any one could of told from that doctor's actionsHank 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 asick day in my life." But he was awful uneasy too.
The doctor, he says to the feller with him: "Looey, bring me one of thesample size."
Looey brung it, the doctor never taking his eyes off'n Hank. He handedit to Hank, and he says:
"A whiskey glass full three times a day, my friend, and there is a goodchance 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 corkout and smelt it, right thoughtful. And what them fellers had stoppedat our place fur was to have the shoe of the nigh hoss's off hind footnailed on, which it was most ready to drop off. Hank, he done it fur aregulation, dollar-size bottle and they druv on into the village.
Right after supper I goes down town. They was in front of Smith's PalaceHotel. They was jest starting up when I got there. Well, sir, thatdoctor was a sight. He didn't have his duster onto him, but hisstove-pipe hat was, and one of them long Prince Alferd coats nearly tohis knees, and shiny shoes, but his vest was cut out holler fur to showhis biled shirt, and it was the pinkest shirt I ever see, and in themiddle 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 moregenuine fashionableness sticking out all over him than Doctor Kirby. Hejest fairly wallered in it.
I hadn't paid no pertic'ler attention to the other feller with him whenthey stopped at our place, excepting to notice he was kind of slimand blackhaired and funny complected. But I seen now I orter of lookedcloseter. 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, withmoccasins on, and beads and shells all over him, and the gaudiest turkeytail of feathers rainbowing down from his head you ever see, and ablanket around him that was gaudier than the feathers. And he shined andrattled every time he moved.
That wagon was a hull opry house to itself. It was rolled out in frontof Smith's Palace Hotel without the hosses. The front part was filledwith bottles of medicine. The doctor, he begun business by taking out along brass horn and tooting on it. They was about a dozen come, but theywas mostly boys. Then him and the Injun picked up some banjoes and sunga comic song out loud and clear. And they was another dozen or socome. And they sung another song, and Pop Wilkins, he closed up thepost-office and come over and the other two veterans of the Grand Armyof the Republicans that always plays checkers in there nights come alongwith him. But it wasn't much of a crowd, and the doctor he looked sorto' worried. I had a good place, right near the hind wheel of the wagonwhere he rested his foot occasional, and I seen what he was thinking. SoI says to him:
"Doctor Kirby, I guess the crowd is all gone to the circus aginto-night." And all them fellers there seen I knowed him.
"I guess so, Rube," he says to me. And they all laughed 'cause he calledme Rube, and I felt kind of took down.
Then he lit in to tell about that Injun medicine. First off he told howhe come to find out about it. It was the father of the Injun whatwas with him had showed him, he said. And it was in the days of hisyouthfulness, 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 ofOregon, wherever them is, and he got plugged full of bullet holes. Andhis hoss run away with him and he was carried off, and the hoss wasgoing at a dead run, and the blood was running down onto the ground. Andthe wolves smelt the blood and took out after him, yipping and yowlingsomething frightful to hear, and the hoss he kicked out behind andkilled the head wolf and the others stopped to eat him up, and whilethey was eating him the hoss gained a quarter of a mile. But they et himup and they was gaining agin, fur the smell of human blood was on theplains of Oregon, he says, and the sight of his mother's face when sheast him never to be a cowboy come to him in the moonlight, and he knowedthat somehow all would yet be well, and then he must of fainted and heknowed no more till he woke up in a tent on the plains of Oregon. Andthey was an old Injun bending over him and a beautiful Injun maiden wasfeeling 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 thereInjuns fur thousands and thousands of years. Any Injun that give awaythe secret was killed and rubbed off the rolls of the tribe and buriedin disgrace upon the plains of Oregon. And the doctor was made a bloodbrother of the chief, and learnt the secret of that medicine. Finallyhe got the chief to see as it wasn't Christian to hold back thatthere medicine from the world no longer, and the chief, his heart wassoftened, and he says to go.
"Go, my brother," he says, "and give to the pale faces the medicinethat has been kept secret fur thousands and thousands of years among theSiwash Injuns on the plains of Oregon."
And he went. It wasn't that he wanted to make no money out of that theremedicine. He could of made all the money he wanted being a doctor in thereg'lar way. But what he wanted was to spread the glad tidings of goodhealth all over this fair land of ourn, he says.
Well, sir, he was a talker, that there doctor was, and he knowed morereligious sayings and poetry along with it, than any feller I everhearn. He goes on and he tells how awful sick people can manage to getand never know it, and no one else never suspicion it, and live alongfur years and years that-a-way, and all the time in danger of death. Hesays it makes him weep when he sees them poor dilu
ted fools going aroundand thinking they is well men, talking and laughing and marrying andgiving 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 cantell at a glance who's got Bright's Disease in their kidneys and whoain't. His own father, he says, was deathly sick fur years and years andnever knowed it, and the knowledge come on him sudden like, and he died.That was before Siwash Injun Sagraw was ever found out about. DoctorKirby broke down and cried right there in the wagon when he thought ofhow his father might of been saved if he was only alive now that thatmedicine was put up into bottle form, six fur a five-dollar bill so longas he was in town, and after that two dollars fur each bottle at thedrug store.
He unrolled a big chart and the Injun helt it by that there gasolinelamp, so all could see, turning the pages now and then. It was a map ofa man's inside organs and digestive ornaments and things. They was redand blue, like each organ's own disease had turned it, and some of 'emwas yaller. And they was a long string of diseases printed in blackhanging down from each organ's picture. I never knowed before they wasso many diseases nor yet so many things to have 'em in.
Well, I was feeling purty good when that show started. But the doc,he kep' looking right at me every now and then when he talked, and Icouldn't keep my eyes off'n him.
"Does your heart beat fast when you exercise?" he asts the crowd. "Isyour tongue coated after meals? Do your eyes leak when your nose isstopped up? Do you perspire under your arm pits? Do you ever have aringing in your ears? Does your stomach hurt you after meals? Does yourback ever ache? Do you ever have pains in your legs? Do your eyes blurwhen you look at the sun? Are your teeth coated? Does your hair come outwhen you comb it? Is your breath short when you walk up stairs? Do yourfeet swell in warm weather? Are there white spots on your finger nails?Do you draw your breath part of the time through one nostril and partof the time through the other? Do you ever have nightmare? Did yournose bleed easily when you were growing up? Does your skin fester whenscratched? Are your eyes gummy in the mornings? Then," he says, "if youhave any or all of these symptoms, your blood is bad, and your liver iswasting away."
Well, sir, I seen I was in a bad way, fur at one time or another I hadhad most of them there signs and warnings, and hadn't heeded 'em, and Ihad some of 'em yet. I begun to feel kind o' sick, and looking at themorgans and diseases didn't help me none, either. The doctor, he lit outon another string of symptoms, and I had them, too. Seems to me I hadpurty nigh everything but fits. Kidney complaint and consumption bothhad a holt on me. It was about a even bet which would get me first. Ikind o' got to wondering which. I figgered from what he said that I'dhad consumption the LONGEST while, but my kind of kidney trouble was anawful SLY kind, and it was lible to jump in without no warning a-talland jest natcherally wipe me out QUICK. So I sort o' bet on thekidney trouble. But I seen I was a goner, and I forgive Hank all hisorneriness, fur a feller don't want to die holding grudges.
Taking it the hull way through, that was about the best medicine show Iever seen. But they didn't sell much. All the people what had any moneywas to the circus agin that night. So they sung some more songs andclosed early and went into the hotel.