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"Yes, dad," she said, smoothing his hands. "What damned liars they be Liddy! You're my gel, ain't ye?" "Yes, dad. I'll make some boneset liquor now." "Yes, yes," he said, with childish eagerness and a weak, wild smile. "That's it that's it." She was about to rise, but he caught her shoulder. "I bin a good dad to ye, hain't I, Liddy?" he whispered. "Always." "Never had no ma but Manette, did ye?"
His first thought was to call at the Reist home. Amanda, outwardly improved Millie said, "All because of that there boneset tea" welcomed spring and its promise, but she could not extend to Lyman Mertzheimer the same degree of welcome. "It's that Lyman again," Millie reported after she had opened the door for the caller. "He looks kinda mad about something.
The remainder were of that class of illiterate and unlearning quacks who physic and blister the poor whites and negros in the country districts of the South; who believe they can stop bleeding of the nose by repeating a verse from the Bible; who think that if in gathering their favorite remedy of boneset they cut the stem upwards it will purge their patients, and if downward it will vomit them, and who hold that there is nothing so good for "fits" as a black cat, killed in the dark of the moon, cut open, and bound while yet warm, upon the naked chest of the victim of the convulsions.
She looks real bad you don't want her to go in consumption like that Ellie Hess over near my place." "Oh, mercy no! Becky, how you scare abody! I'll fix her up some boneset tea to-day yet. I got some on the garret that Millie dried last summer." Amanda protested against the boneset but to please her mother she promised to swallow faithfully the doses of bitter tea.
Now, you know, I've none of the fussing, baby-tending, herb-tea-making recommendations of Aunt Sally, and divers others of the class commonly called useful. Indeed, to tell the truth, I think useful persons are commonly rather fussy and stupid. They are just like the boneset, and hoarhound, and catnip very necessary to be raised in a garden, but not in the least ornamental."
You may fancy all that followed; and we can only assure all who are doubtful, that, under judicious management, cases of this kind may be disposed of without wormwood or boneset. Our hero and heroine were called to sublunary realities by the voice of Miss Silence, who came into the passage to see what upon earth they were doing.
The plants were set out in neat rows and clumps, and she soon learned to know the strange ones chamomile, lobelia, bloodroot, wormwood, lovage, boneset, lemon and sweet balm, lavender and rue, as well as she knew the old acquaintances familiar to every country-bred child pennyroyal, peppermint or spearmint, yellow dock, and thoroughwort.
"Yes, dad," she said, smoothing his hands. "What damned liars they be Liddy! You're my gel, ain't ye?" "Yes, dad. I'll make some boneset liquor now." "Yes, yes," he said, with childish eagerness and a weak, wild smile. "That's it that's it." She was about to rise, but he caught her shoulder. "I bin a good dad to ye, hain't I, Liddy?" he whispered. "Always." "Never had no ma but Manette, did ye?"
Above the litter of barrels and boxes that covered the western half of the floor, hung the Christmas trimmings in their little bag; seeds for the spring planting, each kind done up separately; strings of dried peppers; rows of cob-corn, suspended by the shucks; slippery-elm, sage, and boneset in paper packages; unused powder-horns; and the big brothers' steel traps.
The little woman stood still a moment gazing at the steaming bowl, lines growing suddenly around her mouth, then she looked at Aunt Kate quizzically. "Is my cold bad so bad that I need boneset?" she asked, in a queer, constrained voice. "It's comforting, is boneset tea, even when there's no cold, 'specially when the whiskey's good, and the boneset and camomile has steeped some days."
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