When the news got out that I was sick, lots of folks came to see me. And every one wanted me to take some different kinds of patented medicine, or herb drink--why my stomach would have been drounded out, a perfect wreck--if I had took half. And then every one would name my desease some new name. Why I told Josiah at the end of the week, that accordin’ to their tell, I had got every desease under the sun, unless it was the horse distemper. One mornin’ Miss Gowdey came in, and asked me in a melancholy way, if I had ever had the kind pox. I told her I had. “Well,” says she, “I mistrust you have got the very oh Lord.” It was a Saturday mornin’ and Thomas Jefferson was to home, and he spoke up and said “that was a good desease, and he hoped it would prevail; he knew quite a number that he thought it would do ’em good to have it.” She looked real shocked, but knew it was some of Thomas J.’s fun. There was one woman that would come in, in a calm, quiet way about 2 times a week, and say in a mild, collected tone, “You have got the tizick.” Says I, “the pain is in my foot mostly.” “I can’t help that,” says she gently, but firmly, “There is tizick with it. And I think that is what ailed Josiah when he was sick.” “Why,” says I, “that was the newraligy, the doctors said.” “Doctors are liable to mistakes,” says she in the same firm but modest accents, “I have always thought it was the tizick. There are more folks that are tiziky than you think for, in this world. I am a master hand for knowin’ it when I see it.” She would then in an affectionate manner advise me to doctor for the tizick, and then she would gently depart. There are 2 kinds of wimmen that go to see the sick. There’s them low voiced, still footed wimmen, that walks right in, and lays their hands on your hot foreheads so soothin’ like, that the pain gets ashamed of itself and sneaks off. I call ’em God’s angels. Spozen they haint got wings, I don’t care, I contend for it they are servin’ the Lord jest as much as if they was a standin’ up in a row, all feathered out, with a palm tree in one hand and a harp in the other. So I told old Gowdey one cold winter day--(he is awful stingy, he has got a big wood lot--yet lets lots of poor families most freeze round him, in the winter time. He will pray for ’em by the hour, but it don’t seem to warm ’em up much)--he says to me, “Oh! if I was only a angel! if I only had holt of the palm tree up yonder that is waitin’ for me.” Says I, coolly, “if it is used right, I think good body maple goes a good ways toward makin’ a angel.” As I say, I have had these angels in my room--some kinder slimmish ones, some, that would go nigh on to 2 hundred by the stellyards, I don’t care if they went 3 hundred quick, I should call ’em angels jest the same.