“Short arter I had kum from Georgy to Mass-ass-sip, a nere nabur--Miss Splicer--had a darter--Miss Spiffle, you had better gin Boney another sup of the sheep safurn--doctor, you said you had no injections to it--what made a slide one day, and 'lowed her dad's axe to fall on her foot, cutting her big toe clean off as sarcumstances would permit. It bled 'mazinly, and the gal hollered out till her mammy, who war splittin'--his throat, Miss Spiffle, a spoonful at a time--rails at the far end of the clearin' (for she was a monstrous 'dustryus woman, Miss Splicer was), heard the rumption and came to the house, lumbrin' over the high logs like a big bull in--a little more whiskey in mine, Miss Spiffle, if you please; what a pity it is that your husband drinks--a small pastur' in the worst of flytime, as she told me arter, thinking some of the town-boys had got hold of the gal. “When she got there and seed the blood, and the toe excavated off, a-trying to keep time with the stump which war quiverin' in the air, like the gal had the 'skitters,' she memorized what a doctor had told her to do in such cases--to displace the parts and heal them up by the fust contention; so she slapt the toe on the foot agin, an' tide a rag on tight, an' put the gal to bed. Well, everything went on monstrous nice--scat! Miss Spiffle, the laws-a'-massy! that cat's tail come mity nigh toching his hand; and 'twould never got well--an' in 'bout two weaks, Miss Splicer axed me to come over and sister her getting the rag off, as she hadn't been informed that far, for her husband had got drunk and run the doctor off jist arter he had showed her how to put the thing up for healin'. “Well, I went over, and arter soaking her--stumak, Miss Spiffle, put the goose grease on his stumak--foot in hot water, I peeled the rag off; and the Lord be marsiful to a sinful world, fur I seed the toe had grown fust-rate fast, but the poor ignerant creetur of a mother had put it on with the _nail turned down_, and the poor gal's dancing were 'ternally spiled.” Telling the people that I would not return unless they sent for me, and the sun being low, I mounted my horse and dashed off for home. Coming to a fork in the path, I took the one I thought I had come in the morning, and gave myself no further concern about the road. I mentioned that I had filled my pockets with Valerian on leaving home, and on this simple thing depended two lives, as the sequel will show.