by Helen Wells
“That’s fine. Thanks very much,” Dr. Hal said. “Is there a chemist here today?”
Miss Cross said no, but there was a commercial chemistry laboratory in town, Greer’s, which the medical personnel, food processors, local druggists, and the university trained farmers relied on.
Greer’s Laboratories was in an office building. Dr. Thomas Greer, a tall, greying man wearing a lab coat and rubber gloves, stopped his experiment to talk with Dr. Hal and Cherry. Cherry felt at home in the quiet laboratory with its racy odors and its tables and shelves piled with big pieces of equipment, racks, flasks, reference books, and typed reports.
“A breakdown of the elements in this patent medicine?” the chemist said, as Dr. Hal handed him the jar. He unscrewed the top and sniffed its contents. “What do you think is in this mixture? After all, this could be any one of a thousand different things.”
Cherry remembered that the pedlar who sold the stuff lived in the woods; he picked berries and herbs, and sold those, too. She recalled Phoebe Grisbee’s and Amy Swaybill’s faith in herbs as cure-alls.
“Mightn’t the remedy contain some sort of herb that grows wild in these parts?” Cherry suggested. “As one of the ingredients?”
“The label does mention herbs,” Dr. Greer said. “Well, we’ll test for an herb. My two assistants are off today—if either of you’d like to help a bit.”
“We’re rusty,” Dr. Hal warned him. But Cherry said, “Helping with an analysis is exciting—like detective work!”
The chemist smiled at her. “Exactly how I feel, too. Let’s start.”
First Dr. Greer made a litmus paper test checking for acid base balance. Then he took a clean glass test tube, poured what was left of Nature’s Herb Cure into it, handed the jar back to Hal, and placed the test tube on a Bunsen burner with its blue-violet flame. Cherry sniffed as the liquid bubbled and gradually separated into its component elements. It certainly was smelly. Dr. Greer pointed out a sediment that settled at the bottom of the test tube.
“We’ll set up an experiment with the sediment,” the chemist said. First he examined it under the microscope. “I think this is panacin.” Then he mixed it with another chemical, to see how it would react, and tried it with other catalysts. “Yes, this is panacin,” Dr. Greer said. “It’s the main constituent of this patent medicine.”
Cherry and Dr. Hal were not sure what panacin was. Dr. Greer explained that it was an oily, gluey substance derived from the Panax or Ginseng plant. He said it could slightly soothe irritated mucous membrane. It also had a slightly stimulating effect as a tonic.
“Why don’t you look it up?” the chemist said, and pointed out a copy of The Merck Index of Chemicals and Drugs on the bookshelf. This was a standard reference book giving a list of drugs and chemicals.
“I’d like to look it up,” Cherry said, and took down the heavy volume. She turned to “ginseng” and read that panacin is derived from the five leaf (quinquefolium) Panax or ginseng plant. The chemical constituents of the plant are panacin, sugar, starch, mucilage—Cherry skipped over other ingredients in the long list. She read that The Pharmacopeia of the United States of America had recognized ginseng 1840-1880 as an aromatic bitters with a mildly soothing and stimulating effect. But at present, and since about 1906 when the Federal Pure Food and Drug Act was enacted, ginseng had no official value. It’s like herb tea, Cherry thought, nearly worthless as a drug.
Then she consulted a botany book and read in surprise:
“American Panax or ginseng, a perennial, is a small, leafy, originally woodland plant. It is native to the United States; it also grows in China. In early days in America, ginseng hunters, even a century ago, found large patches of ginseng where for hundreds of years the plant had grown untouched.” She went on reading. “Ginseng is now rare and little known. Some wild patches can still be found, growing in the temperateweather zone around the Mississippi River, particularly in Illinois and Iowa.”
Particularly in Iowa! “Its stalks carry five leaf clusters. In September it has bright crimson berries. It has a forked root like a human figure, two to four inches long, translucent and brittle. Ginseng grows wild and can be transplanted, or it can be cultivated. Ginseng requires very little care or nurture.”
Why, this was the plant growing in profusion at the abandoned farm! The distinctive plant neither she nor Jane had ever seen before! The plant that had been common enough a hundred years ago—A century ago, Cherry thought. The secret of the old farm dated back a hundred years or more. Cherry turned the page and found a detailed pen and ink drawing of the Panax or ginseng leaves and root. She recognized it as exactly the same plant! She had never seen ginseng growing anywhere else around here. Nor had Dr. Hal, when she excitedly asked him.
The chemist was busy with paper and pencil, reconstructing the formula of the patent medicine, muttering, “Traces of albumen.” He looked up and noticed Cherry’s excitement. “Have you found something interesting, Miss Ames?”
“Yes, I have!—in this book—I mean, especially at an abandoned farm near Sauk,” she sputtered. It took her a moment to calm down, and explain to Dr. Hal and the chemist.
They agreed her discovery was important. The ginseng that went into the patent medicine might very well be the same ginseng growing at the abandoned farm. If so, they had their first lead toward finding the irresponsible or dishonest manufacturer of Nature’s Herb Cure.
“But look at this address,” Dr. Hal objected. He held up the jar and read: “ ‘Manufactured by Nature’s Herbs Company, Flushing, Iowa.’ Is Flushing near here? I never heard of it.”
Dr. Greer, a native Iowan, had never heard of Flushing, either. “Never mind where the place is. Ginseng is uncommon. The ginseng used in this remedy might be grown around Sauk, and shipped to Flushing.”
“Dr. Greer,” Cherry asked, “if I were to go to that old farm this afternoon and bring you back a ginseng plant today or tomorrow, how soon could you analyze it? To find out for certain whether it has the same ingredient, the panacin, that you just found in this patent medicine—”
“I could analyze it Monday morning,” the chemist said. “All I’ll need will be the root.”
“I’ll bring it late today or tomorrow.”
Dr. Greer obligingly gave her his home address in case the laboratory was closed. They completed the day’s business with the chemist, paid and thanked him, and left.
On the drive back to Sauk, Cherry and Dr. Hal stopped for late lunch at a highway diner. Dr. Hal decided to notify all the other local doctors at once of what he and Cherry were beginning to find out.
“I’d like to tell Jane what’s up,” Cherry said. “It’s her farm that’s involved.”
“That may be involved,” Dr. Hal corrected her.
Cherry smiled. “Yes. Just the same, I think she should be told. It’s her property. Would you mind, Hal? And would you mind if I took Jane to the old farm with me this afternoon?”
Dr. Hal said he had no objection. He drove Cherry back to Sauk, to her aunt’s house, and went off to his patients. Cherry said a quick hello to Aunt Cora, explained she was at leisure that afternoon, and dashed off for the garage and her own car.
“At leisure?” Aunt Cora called after her. “I never saw anyone so busy in my life!”
CHAPTER VII
A Theft and Some Answers
CHERRY FOUND JANE FRASER SITTING IN THE SUNNY YARD with Mrs. Barker. They were slicing vegetables for supper, holding a pan apiece in their laps. Cherry heard Floyd whistling in the house.
“Jane, would you like to come for a little drive?” Cherry asked. “Would you, Mrs. Barker?”
Emma Barker was too busy, but urged Jane to go. “Floyd!” she called. “Bring Jane’s sweater, will you? She and Miss Cherry are going riding.”
In a minute or two Floyd sauntered out carrying Jane’s sweater. “I’ll go along with you,” he said. “I just feel like a ride.”
“No, sir. Sorry, but you’re not invited this time,” C
herry said quickly. Perhaps a shade too quickly. The investigation of ginseng and the remedy was none of Floyd’s business. “This is an all feminine party.”
He shrugged and—when his mother prompted him—helped Jane maneuver her crutches as she got into Cherry’s car. The two girls drove off.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” Jane said. “I thought you’d be busy even on a Saturday afternoon.”
“I am busy. This drive has a purpose. Jane, can you keep a secret? It concerns your farm, in part—or it may.”
Cherry told her all that she and Dr. Hal had discovered so far. Jane, with her nutritionist’s training in biology, chemistry, and biochemistry, understood what Cherry was telling her. She was shocked at the possibility that their neighbors were endangering their health with the so-called remedy.
“We’ve all heard about that Nature’s Herb Cure,” Jane said. “I thought it might be harmless, or worthless at the worst. But I never suspected it might be dangerous. Do you suppose there’s any chance that the ginseng growing on my farm—?”
“I’m afraid it’s a possibility, Jane.”
They turned in at the abandoned farm and parked the car. Cherry got out alone. She walked to the edge of the big ginseng patch and pulled up eight or nine plants by the roots. Jane watched as Cherry examined the roots to make sure she had an adequate, average sampling. She discarded two rotted roots, and picked others.
“How quiet and lonely it is here!” Jane called from the car. “I hear that bullfrog croaking.”
“Must be a pond or stagnant water around here,” Cherry answered. “That’s where your bullfrog lives.”
Stagnant water, probably with flies or mosquitoes breeding in it and in the dirt of an abandoned house. The place needed a thorough disinfecting, scrubbing, painting, before it would be fit to live in—not to mention the fire-eaten second floor. She wandered closer to the house, looking for any bare spots where someone else had pulled up ginseng plants and roots. The patch grew so thickly that she could not tell.
Cherry returned to the car and put her armful of plants and roots on the back seat. She noticed that Jane looked troubled.
“I wish this ginseng plant weren’t growing on my farm,” Jane said. “If someone is gathering this plant to make that medicine—well, it’s rather frightening. I have enough problems, without this additional worry.”
Cherry said, “Maybe whoever is helping himself to this wild patch of ginseng—if anybody is—doesn’t know that a new owner has this farm now.”
Jane was still uneasy on the drive back. To cheer her up, Cherry told her how she and Dr. Hal had been inquiring on their rounds—among patients, among acquaintances, in Sauk, at the Iowa City hospital—about a nutritionist’s job for Jane. One or two leads were shaping up. Jane was encouraged.
“If only this ankle would hurry up and heal,” she said with a sigh. Cherry had to help her out of the car at the Barker cottage. Jane went up the path. “Mrs. Barker loves to have company. Have you a few minutes to come in and visit?”
“On a Saturday afternoon, yes, thanks.”
The old lady put aside her chores and came into the little sitting room to chat. If Floyd was around, he did not intrude on them. Mike, the parrot, was asleep hanging upside down.
Mrs. Barker wanted to have a tea party, but the two girls would not let her bother. Cherry admired the old sampler on the wall.
“My great grandmother embroidered it,” Mrs. Barker said. “I still darn socks the way she taught my grandmother. I used to do embroidery, too. But fine needlework is a lost art nowadays—though there’ll surely be some nice patchwork quilts on display at the county fair.”
They talked about going to the fair next month—Jane could meet local people there and ask about repairing the old house. Besides, the fair was a gala event.
After half an hour, Cherry said she must go. Emma Barker was so disappointed that Cherry explained:
“I want to stop in to see Mrs. Reed and her baby. Then, too, I promised my aunt to buy a bushel of apples at the crossroads grocery store. She likes their Rome Beauties.”
Cherry did not add that she also hoped to have time to drive to Iowa City with the ginseng roots for the chemist.
At Dot Reed’s she found mother and baby in fine shape, and left some baby-care pamphlets. Then Cherry drove on to the grocery store at the crossroads. Because it was a Saturday afternoon, a large number of cars and station wagons were parked out in front and the store was crowded. Cherry visited with several people until it was her turn to be waited on. The grocer carried the bushel basket of apples out to Cherry’s car for her.
As Cherry opened the car door for the grocer to put the apples in the back seat she gave a little cry. The ginseng plants and roots were gone!
“What’s the matter, miss?” the grocer asked.
“Something’s been stolen from my car! Nothing valuable, but—but I never thought to lock the car.”
“That’s a real mean trick,” the grocer said. “Anything I can do to help?”
Cherry thanked him and said no. He went back to his customers. For a moment or two Cherry simply stood there, she was so surprised. Who would steal the ginseng samples from her? Someone who did not want the county nurse to find out too much? Someone who did not want the medical people to link the ginseng plant with the dubious medicine?
Had someone trailed her and Jane to the abandoned farm, and observed her picking the ginseng? She hadn’t noticed anyone. Unless someone lurking inside the old farmhouse had watched her—then followed her—Cherry felt a momentary terror but controlled herself. She had seen no one follow her from the farm.
Well, then, at what point had the unknown person stolen the ginseng from her car? She had parked the car, unlocked, at three places—here in the crowded space in front of the grocery store, briefly in front of Dot Reed’s house, and before that, at Mrs. Barker’s. She’d been at the Reeds’ on a wide-open stretch of highway too short a time for the theft to have occurred there. She’d been parked longest—half an hour—outside Mrs. Barker’s cottage, when she brought Jane home and stayed to visit. That would have given the thief ample time to help himself to the ginseng.
Floyd! Floyd might still have been around the Barker place during that half hour, and out of sheer nosiness and mischief, he could have poked into her car. That might be his malicious retort to not being included in her and Jane’s drive.
Or—if Floyd was the thief—did he have some other motive for taking her samples of ginseng?
“But the thief must know I can go back to the old farm and pick more ginseng,” Cherry thought. Maybe the theft was subtle warning that she was being watched. Cherry recalled her first impression of Floyd Barker—he appeared to be a not-very-bright country bumpkin, but she had sensed something hard and tricky in him.
On the other hand, the thief need not necessarily be Floyd at all. She’d been inside the grocery store for a good fifteen or twenty minutes. The thief could have taken the plants during that time. So many possible answers!
As she reached into the back of the car to steady the basket of apples, she noticed something on the car floor. It was a ginseng root. Good! Here was one root the thief had overlooked or dropped. She still had a sample!
Cherry telephoned Aunt Cora from the grocery store that she didn’t know how late she would be home that evening, and not to wait for her for supper. Then she turned the car around and headed for Iowa City. It was dark by the time she got there and left the root for Dr. Greer. It was dark and chilly on the drive home to Sauk. No one followed her and nothing untoward happened.
However, the first thing she did on reaching home was to telephone Dr. Hal and tell him what had happened. He was disturbed about the theft, too.
“You’ve had quite a day,” he said. “Rest yourself tomorrow. I’ll come over and buy you a soda. Don’t worry, now. We should have the laboratory reports by Monday or Tuesday, if we’re lucky.”
“Did you reach Mr. Henderson?” Cherry asked.
“Not yet, but soon. I talked to his wife, and she said he phoned that he’ll be working on this same inspection job all evening, and will be home tomorrow morning,” Hal said. “So I’ll call him at his home tomorrow morning. It’s progress.”
Hal kept his word about coming over to treat her to a soda on Sunday afternoon. And he had encouraging news. The head of the State Department of Pharmacy and Narcotics agreed with Dr. Hal that action should be taken immediately to investigate the trouble making remedy. He would try to send an inspector tomorrow, Monday. At the moment all of his inspectors were out on field trips, but he would make every effort to send a man by tomorrow.
“Good,” said Cherry. “That’s a relief.”
“I also told Mr. Henderson,” Dr. Hal said to Cherry, “that Snell is selling the remedy in both Iowa and Missouri, that makes it interstate commerce—so the Federal Food and Drug Administration would probably be interested in this case. Mr. Henderson said he’d take that factor into consideration, and maybe he’ll decide to call in the Food and Drug people. But, in the meantime, he’ll try to have an inspector here in Sauk tomorrow.” Hal sighed. “I feel relieved, too. I’d feel still more satisfied if I could see those lab reports.”
Monday noon, on her lunch hour, Cherry telephoned from the field to her office in Sauk.
“Just a moment,” said the clerk. “Dr. Miller is here, and he wants to talk with you.”
Hal’s voice came on. He sounded excited.
“Cherry, I have the lab technician’s—Miss Cross’s—report. She just telephoned it in. Wow, this is a bombshell! Listen to this!”
He read the report and Cherry could scarcely believe it, it was so appalling. First, the patent medicine was worthless as a cure. In the tests run on the flu-infected mice, giving them the patent medicine did not check the flu in the least—instead it made them sicker, inducing diarrhea and vomiting. Second, the patent remedy was dangerous. In the tests run on well mice, the patent medicine made many of them sick.