ANOTHER nondescript, whom I occasionally met prowling around among the hills and along the beach, was known as “Doc Looney.” Catfish John said he was a “yarb man,” and that he had been to see him sometimes when he “felt bad.”
Doc seemed to have no fixed abode, and seemed disinclined to talk about one. He had rather a moth-eaten appearance, and wore an old pair of smoke-colored spectacles. He spent a great deal of time around the edges of the little marshes, back of the hills, looking for some particular “potential plant,” which he was never able to find.
He gave me an interesting account of Catfish John’s case, and said he hoped to operate on him in the spring if he didn’t improve. His theory was that the knee-joints had lost the “essential oils” that nature had used for lubrication, and that reinforcements were needed. He intended to “make a cut” in the side of the left knee, and “squirt some{150} animal oil into it.” If this worked, he would “oil up the other leg later.”
The consent of the intended victim of this experimental surgery had not yet been obtained.
He had tried smart-weed tea, slippery elm, and snake-root on John, internally, and fish oil and rat musk externally, without being able to make him stop complaining. The smart-weed was to furnish the compound with the necessary “punch.” The slippery elm was a “possible interior lubricant,” and the snake-root was designed to impart the desired “sinuousness and mobility” to the affected joints. The fish oil, applied to the outside, was also to provide possible lubrication, and the addition of the rat musk was intended “to drive it in.”
Before resorting to the operation, he was willing to try the mysterious herb that he had been looking for all summer. Possibly this might fix John up all right if he wouldn’t consent to the operation. Doc hoped, however, that the operation could be arranged, as he had “never performed one on a leg, and would like to try it.”
He believed that everybody, even when the{151} general health was good, should “take some powerful remedy occasionally. It would explore the system for imperfections, find disease in unsuspected localities, and probably eradicate it before it had a chance to form. Whatever the remedy was good for would be headed off and it was best to take no chances.” He thought that the medicine used “should have some bromide in it.” He did not know exactly what the bromide did, but “anyway its a dam’ good chemical, and it ought to be used whenever possible.”
He had what he called a “spring medicine” which I could have for half a dollar. He stated that the compound contained “ten different and distinct sovereign remedies and the bottle must be kept securely corked.” The remedies were all “secret,” and “seven of them were very powerful.” He had known of cases “in which a few doses had destroyed two or three diseases at once, and had undoubtedly prevented others.” Used externally, it “made an excellent liniment for bruises and sprains.” It was also “good to rub on eruptions of any kind.”
He thought that a little whisky might help a{152} patient of his if he could get it to him that afternoon, and asked if I “happened to carry any.” He suggested that I bring some the next time I “happened along, as it might be very useful.” He seldom used it himself, except when he had “stummick cramps,” but these were “likely to come on ’most any time”—in fact he had had quite a severe attack about an hour before, and this was what had reminded him of it.
He told me a long story about his matrimonial troubles. He had been married twice, to unappreciative mates. To use his own expression, he had been “fired” in both instances, but they were now trying to find him again. He was a much abused man. He had been badly “stung,” and was now “hostile toward all females.” He did not intend to get caught in their toils again—and probably there is not much danger that he will be.
My private sympathies were entirely with these unknown irate women who had resorted to the radical methods of which Doc complained.
He had met with some very difficult cases during the past few years. Some of them “presented symptoms which had never been heard of before.{153}” In such cases it was his custom to give the patient “a certain solution that would produce convulsions,” and, as he was “particularly strong on convulsions,” he was usually “able to cure these in a short time.” When the convulsions stopped, the unknown symptoms would usually disappear.
He had endeavored several times to get Catfish John to try this method, “but for some reason he didn’t want to do it.” His fees in John’s case had consisted of the entrée of the smoke-house that contained the fish which had become too dead to be peddled. He did not think much of the fish, but declared that he had got a large one there the week before, “an’ some of it was all right.”
Sipes once suggested to John that he smoke some fish “’specially fer the Doc,” and if he was not willing to do it, he would come up some day and do it himself. He would “smoke some that ’ud finish the Doc in a few hours.” John objected to this and thought that the “Doc ought to have the same kind o’ smoked fish that other people got.” Sipes replied that this was “pufectly satisfactory” to him.
After discoursing at length on some wonderful{154} cures which he had effected, in cases that “the reg’lar doctors had given up,” and the “marvelous potentialities” of some of his secret herb extracts, and “saline infusions, even when given in small doses,” Doc would disappear in the gray landscape—probably absorbed in his reflections upon the “general cussedness of womankind” and the futility of medical schools.
I was always apprehensive when he went in John’s direction, but as the old fisherman looked comparatively well when I last saw him, it was evident that Doc had not yet operated.
“You know it’s far be it from me to knock anybody,” said Sipes one morning, “but this Doc Looney gives me a big chill. He’s always moseyin’ around, an’ never seems to be goin’ anywheres.
“Oncet ’e come here an’ borrowed a kittle. He took it off up the shore, an’ that night I seen ’im with a little fire that ’e’d built on the sand up next to the bluff, near some logs. He was roostin’ on one o’ the logs, studyin’ sumpen that was in the kittle. I sneaked up unbeknown, an’ watched ’im fer a long time. He kept puttin’ weeds an’ han’fulls o’ buds in the kittle an’ stirrin’ the mess with{155}
a stick. Every little while ’e’d taste o’ the dope by coolin’ the end o’ the stick an’ lickin’ it. Before I seen ’im doin’ this I thought ’e might be mixin’ pizen. He was mixin’ sumpen all right, fer after a while ’e got the kittle offen the fire an’ let it cool a little; then ’e dreened it into a flat bottle through a little birch bark funnel, an’ hid the bottle under a log, an’ covered it up with sand.{156} He took my kittle an’ stowed it in some thick brush, an’ went off up the ravine.
“He’s bin doctorin’ ol’ Catfish, an’ ’e’s always talkin’ ’bout operatin’ on ’im. There ain’t nothin’ the matter with the Catfish, ’cept ’e’s got cricks in ’is legs, an’ they bend out when ’e walks. All ’e needs to do is to set down instid o’ standin’ up, and ’is legs won’t bother ’im. He comes along ’ere oncet in a while, with that ol’ honey cart that ’e loads them much deceased fish into that ’e peddles. It ain’t no rose garden, an’ I always stay to wind’ard when ’e’s ’round. The next time ’e comes I’m goin’ to tell ’im wot I seen the Doc doin’. The first thing Catfish knows Doc’ll dope ’im with that stuff in the bottle, an’ then go after ’im with a knife. There ought to be a law aginst fellers like that. He’s full o’ bats, an’ ’e ought to be put som’eres where they could fly without scarin’ people.
“I never got my kittle back. I went an’ looked where I seen ’im hide it, but ’e’d got to it first, an’ I ain’t seen it since. The next time the Doc comes up ’ere fer a kittle ’e’ll git it out o’ the air, an’ ’e’ll recollect it the rest of ’is life.{157}
“There was a funny lookin’ female come along the beach a couple o’ years ago. She asked me if I’d ever seen a man ’round ’ere with colored glasses, an’ I’ll bet she was on the trail o’ the Doc. She had three or four long wire pins stickin’ through a pie shaped bunnit, with a dead bird on it. She didn’t look good to me an’ I’d hate to ’a’ bin the Doc if she ever got to ’im. I told ’er I wasn’t acquainted with no such person. I may not like the Doc, but I wouldn’t steer nothin{158}’ like that ag’inst ’im, even if ’e did swipe my kittle. She asked me about a thousand questions. The lake was calm an’ there was a lot o’ places out on it where some breeze was puffin’, an’ there was a lot of other places where it was all still an’ glassy. She wanted to know what made them little smooth spots, an’ I told ’er that them places showed where I cut ice out last winter.”
Catfish John said one day that “the feller that hates the Doc the worst ’round ’ere is Sipes. He gave Sipes some medicine oncet when ’e was feelin’ poorly. It was some ’e’d bin usin’ fer a horse. He said Sipes ’ad got pips, an’ would need a lot o’ doctorin’. He kept takin’ it fer about a week, an’ when ’e went out on the beach one day ’e thought ’e met ’imself comin’ back, an’ ’e quit takin’ it. I guess the dope was too strong fer ’im. After that they had a fuss about sumpen else, an’ the old man didn’t have no use fer ’im. Sipes located a big hornet’s nest som’eres up in the woods. He went thar one dark night an’ slipped a bag over it so the hornets couldn’t git out, an’ carried it into the ravine to a little path that the Doc always used when ’e went to see Sipes. He{159} fastened it in a bush, close to the path,............