You may depend it made the old lady wake snakes and walk chalks
talking of physic. She told me if a man was dying or a child was born
in all that settlement, she was always sent for, and related to me
some capital stories; but somehow no English or Yankee woman could
tell them to a man, and a man can't tell them in English. How is this,
Squire, do you know? Ah! here is the doctor, I will ask him by and by.
Women, I believe, are born with certain natural tastes. Sally was
death on lace, and old Aunt Thankful goes the whole figure for furs;
either on 'em could tell real thread or genuine sable clear across the
church. Mother was born with a tidy devil, and had an eye for cobwebs
and blue-bottle flies. She waged eternal war on 'em; while Phoebe
Hopewell beat all natur for bigotry and virtue as she called them
(bijouterie and virtu). But most Yankee women when they grow old,
specially if they are spinsters, are grand at compoundin' medicines
and presarves. They begin by nursin' babies and end by nursin'
broughten up folks. Old Mother Boudrot, now, was great on herbs, most
of which were as simple and as harmless as herself. Some of them was
new to me, though I think I know better ones than she has; but what
made her onfallible was she had faith. She took a key out of her
pocket, big enough for a jail-door, and unlocking a huge sailor's
chest, selected a box made by the Indians of birch bark, worked with
porcupine quills, which enclosed another a size smaller, and that a
littler one that would just fit into it, and so on till she came to
one about the size of an old-fashioned coffee-cup.
Pages:
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405