The way on't wuz Samantha wuz to Tirzah Ann's visitin' and wuz took bed sick there, and right while I wuz stark livin' alone, I wuz took down with voylent pains runnin' up and down my spinal collar, and hull body. But the neighborin' wimmen, friends of Samantha, I will say done all they could for me, they flocked in and filled me up with milk porridge, chicken broth, etc., and sot up with me nights and waited on me, helped by their various husbands. And I should got along all right if it hadn't been for the endless swarm of petickulars they driv into my room. Talk, talk, talk, and tellin' petickulars, some on 'em smaller than the end of a nat's toe nail. And one day when I'd been made almost delerious by 'em, I made out to open the stand draw at the head of my bed and git out a pad and pencil, and writ the follerin' verses which come from the very bottom of my soul, Heaven knows! OWED TO PETICKULARS _By Josiah Allen, Esq._ I've been bed-sick and very bad, And pains and chills and cramps I've had; And at Tirzah's Samantha come suddenly down With pleuresy pains from heel to crown, She couldn't git home with her plaguey crick-- So they never let her know I wuz sick. But the neighbors turned out good and true And stood by me to help me through, They come alone, and they come in pairs, They come with mules, and they come with mares; And I felt the goodness that in 'em lay And treated 'em well both night and day, Till they brung in them petickulars. They come from fur, and they come from near, With new wild remedies strange and queer-- My mouth wuz a open and burnin' road Down which the streams of their medicines flowed; Streams of worm-wood and oil of tar, And onions, and warnuts, and goose, and bar; But my mean wuz a christian's all the while-- I sithed and swallered and tried to smile-- Till they brung in them petickulars. They blistered my back, and they blistered my breast; They iled my nose, and they iled my chest, They gin me sweats of various sorts, Hemlock and whiskey and corn and oats-- I drinked their gruel weaker'n a cat, I drinked their whey, didn't wink at that; I stood their faith cures, and their mind, I took 'em all and acted resigned-- Till they brung in them petickulars. But they tried their cures to the very last, And I grew no better very fast; And I spoze they thought it would brighten my gloom, To bring some petickulars into my room. So they drove 'em in and they talked of flies-- And of chicken's teeth, and muskeeter's eyes, And they talked of pins, and stalks of hay, And lettice seed, and there I lay-- A victim of small petickulars.