It is a trite observation, that when you have rendered yourself popular with the wife, you are insured of the patronage of the husband apply it to the whole sex of women, and it still holds good--married or single they hold the men up, and without their support, no physician can succeed. I had imagined, in my youthful simplicity, that when I entered the swamp, I had left female curiosity--regarding it as the offspring of polished society--behind; but I found out my mistake, and though I was very sleepy, I loved my profession too well not to desire to perfect myself in all the duties of the calling. I have often had a quiet laugh to myself, when I reflect upon the incidents of that night, and what a ludicrous appearance I must have presented to a non-participant, when, on a raw-hide-bottomed chair, I sat in that log cabin, directly in front of a cheerful fire--for though spring, the nights were sufficiently cool to render a fire pleasant--the apex of a pyramid of old women, who stretched in two rows, three on each side, down to the jambs of the chimney. There was Miss Pechum, and Miss Stivers, and Miss Limsey, on one side, and Miss Dims, who, unfortunately, as she informed me, had had her nose bit off by a wild hog, and Miss Ripson, and Miss Tillot, on the other. Six old women, with case-hardened tongues, and only one poor humble “Swamp Doctor,” whom the verdict of one, at first sight, had pronounced a thing, to talk to them all! Fearful odds I saw, and seeing trembled; for the fate of the adventurous Frenchman came fresh to my mind, who proposed for a wager to talk twelve hours with an old widow, and who at the expiration of the time was found dead, with the old lady whispering vainly “frog soup” in his ear. There it was one against one, here it was six versus one, and a small talker at that; but the moments were flying, no time was to be lost, and we commenced. What marvellous stories I told them about things I had seen, and what wonderful recitals they gave me in return! How, first, I addressed my attention to one side of the pyramid, and then bestowed a commensurate intensity upon the other! How learnedly we discoursed upon “yarbs,” and “kumfrey tea,” and “sweet gum sav!” How readily we all acquiesced in the general correctness of the broken-nose lady's remark, “Bless Jesus! we must all die when our time kums,” and what a general smile--which I am certain, had it not been for the propinquity of the invalid, would have amounted to a laugh--went round the pyramid, when Miss Pechum, who talked through her nose, snuffled out a witticism of her youngest son, when he was a babe, in which the point of the joke lay in _bite_, or _right_, or _fight_, or some word of some such sound, but which the imperfection of her pronunciation somewhat obscured! How intently we all listened to Miss Stiver's ghost-story! what upholding of hands and lap-dropping of knitting, and exclamations of fear and horror and admiration, and