THE SWAMP DOCTOR'S ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH-WEST.

Containing The Whole Of The Louisiana Swamp Doctor; Streaks Of Squatter Life; And Far-Western Scenes; In A Series Of Forty-Two Humorous Southern And Western Sketches, Descriptive Of Incidents And Character.

By John Robb

(“Madison Tensas, M.D.,” and “Solitaire,”) Author Of “Swallowing Oysters Alive,” Etc.

Illustrated by Darley.

1858

Original

Original

Original

Original

TO WM. S. PARHAM, and ALFRED J. LOWRY, OF MADISON PARISH, LOUISIANA, MY TRUE AND FAST FRIENDS, THIS HUMBLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY THEIR FRIEND, MADISON TENSAS, M. D.

CONTENTS

THE CITY PHYSICIAN versus THE SWAMP DOCTOR.

MY EARLY LIFE.

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE MEDICINES.

A TIGHT RACE CONSIDERIN'.

TAKING GOOD ADVICE.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.

A RATTLESNAKE ON A STEAMBOAT.

FRANK AND THE PROFESSOR.

THE CURIOUS WIDOW.

THE MISSISSIPPI PATENT PLAN FOR PULLING TEETH.

VALERIAN AND THE PANTHER.

SEEKING A LOCATION

CUPPING AN IRISHMAN.

BEING EXAMINED FOR MY DEGREE.

STEALING A BABY.

THE “SWAMP DOCTOR” TO ESCULAPIUS.

MY FIRST CALL IN THE SWAMP.

THE MAN OF ARISTOCRATIC DISEASES.

THE INDEFATIGABLE BEAR-HUNTER.

LOVE IN A GARDEN.

HOW TO CURE FITS.

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

STREAKS OF SQUATTER LIFE, AND FAR-WEST SCENES.

PREFACE.

STREAKS OF SQUATTER LIFE, AND FAR-WEST SCENES.

THE WESTERN WANDERINGS OF A TYPO.

CHAPTER I. THE WAY HE WAS “BROUGHT UP.”

CHAPTER II. AN ADVENTURE AMONG THE OFFICIALS.

CHAPTER III. JOHN'S EDITORIAL CAREER.

CHAPTER IV. HIS WANDERINGS THROUGH THE PRAIRIES.

CHAPTER V. HIS ENCOUNTER WITH OLD FRIENDS.

“NOT A DROP MORE, MAJOR, UNLESS IT'S SWEETEN'D.”

NETTLE BOTTOM BALL; OR, BETSY JONES' TUMBLE IN THE MUSH PAN.

A “CAT” STORY, WHICH MUST NOT BE CUR-TAILED.

A SPIRITUAL SISTER, HER ENCOUNTER WITH A DOUBTFUL SMITH.

HOSS ALLEN'S APOLOGY; OR, THE CANDIDATE'S NIGHT IN A MUSQUITO SWAMP!

NATURAL ACTING! DAN MARBLE'S FIRST APPEARANCE AT GRAND RIVER, MICHIGAN.

A CANAL ADVENTURE.

THE STANDING CANDIDATE. HIS EXCUSE FOR BEING A BACHELOR.

AN EMIGRANT'S PERILS; OR, A FLYING TICKET ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

FUN WITH A “BAB.” A NIGHT ADVENTURE ON THE MISSOURI.

TELEGRAPHING AN EXPRESS. A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE IN THE AMERICAN BOTTOM.

THE PRE-EMPTION RIGHT; OR, DICK KELSY'S SIGNATURE TO HIS LAND CLAIM.

YALLEK PLEDGES; OR, THE FIGHT ABOUT SALLY SPILLMAN.

GEORGE MUNDAY, THE HATLESS PROPHET.

COURTING IN FRENCH HOLLOW.

THE SECOND ADVENT! TOM BANGALL, THE ENGINEER, AND MILLERISM.

SETTLEMENT FUN. BILL SAPPER'S LETTER TO HIS COUSIN.

“DOING” A LANDLORD. A STORY OF SHAPE AND TALENT.

WHO IS SIR GEORGE SIMPSON? AN EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE ABOUT HIM.

LETTERS FROM A BABY. BY A FORWARD CHILD.

SETH TINDER'S FIRST COURTSHIP, HOW HIS FLAME WAS QUENCHED!

THE DEATH STRUGGLE; OR, THE WAY SMITH DID UP JONES.

“WHO ARE THEY?” A QUESTION OF VITAL IMPORT.

THE CITY PHYSICIAN versus THE SWAMP DOCTOR.

The city physician, or the country doctor of an old-settled locality, with all the appliances of cultivated and refined life around them; possessing all the numberless conveniences and luxuries of the sick-room; capable of controlling the many adverse circumstances that exert such a pernicious influence upon successful practice; having at command the assistance, in critical and anomalous cases, of scientific and experienced coadjutors; the facilities of good roads; the advantages of comfortable dwellings, easy carriages, and the pleasures of commingling with a cultivated, mild, refined society, cannot fully realize and appreciate the condition of their less favoured, humble brethren, who, impelled by youthfulness, poverty, defective education, or the reckless spirit of adventure, have taken up their lot with society nearly in its primitive condition, and dispense the blessings of their profession to the inhabitants of a country, where the obscure bridle-path, the unbridged water-courses, the deadened forest trees, the

ringing of the woodman's axe, the humble log cabin, the homespun dress, and all the many sober, hard realities of pioneer life, attest the youthfulness of the settlement.

The city physician may be of timorous nature and weak and effeminate constitution: the “swamp doctor,” whose midnight ride is often saluted by the scream of the panther, must be of courageous nature, and in physical endurance as hardy as one of his own grand alluvial oaks, whose canopy of leaves is many a night his only shelter.

The city physician may be of fastidious taste, and exquisiteness of feeling; the swamp doctor must have the unconcernedness of the dissecting-room, and be prepared to swallow his peck of dirt all at once.

The city physician must be of polished manners and courtly language: the swamp doctor finds the only use he has for bows, is to escape some impending one that threatens him with Absalomic fate; the only necessity for courtly expression, to induce some bellicose “squatter” to pay his bill in something besides hot curses and cold lead.

The city physician, fast anchored in the sublimity of scientific expression, requires a patient to “inflate his lungs to their utmost capacity;” the swamp doctor tells his to “draw a long breath, or swell your d—dest:” one calls an individual's physical peculiarities, “idiosyncrasy;” the other terms it “a fellow's nater.”

The city physician sends his prescriptions to the drug store, and gives himself no regard as to the purity of the medicine; each swamp doctor is his own pharmacien, and carries his drug store at the saddle.

The city physician rides in an easy carriage over well paved streets, and pays toll at the bridge; we mount a canoe, a pair of mud boots, sometimes a horse, and traverse, unmindful of exposure or danger, the sullen slough or angry river.

The city physician wears broadcloth, and looking in his hat reads, “Paris;” we adorn the outer man with homespun, and gazing at our graceful castors remember the identical hollow tree in which we caught the coon that forms its fair outline and symmetrical proportions.

The city physician goes to the opera or theatre, to relax, and while away a leisure evening. The swamp doctor resorts for the same purpose to a deer or bear hunt, a barbacue or bran dance, and generally ends by becoming perfectly hilarious, and evincing a determination to sit up in order that he can escort the young ladies home before breakfast.

The city physician, compelled to keep up appearances, deems a library of a hundred authors a moderate collection; the swamp doctor glories in the possession of “Gunn's Domestic Medicine,” and the “Mother's Guide.”

The city physician has a costly Parisian instrument for performing operations, and scorns to extract a tooth; the swamp doctor can rarely boast of a case of amputating instruments, and practises dentistry with a gum lancet and a pair of pullikens.

The city physician, with intellect refined, but feelings vitiated by the corruptings and heart-hardenings of modern polished society, views with utter indifference or affected sympathy the dissolution of body and soul in his patients: but think you, we can see depart unmoved those with whom we have endured privations, have been knit like brothers together by our mutual dangers; with whom we have hunted, fished, and shared the crust and lowly couch; with whom we have rejoiced and sorrowed; think you we can see them go down to the grave with tearless eyes, with unmoved soul? If we can, then blot out that expression so accordant with common sentiment, “God made the country, and man the town.”

The city physician sends the poor to the hospital, and eventually to the dissecting-room; we tend and furnish them gratuitously, and a proposal to dispose of them anatomically would, in all probability, put a knife into us.

One, with a sickly frame, anticipates old age; the other, with a vigorous constitution, knows that exposure and privation will cut him off ere his meridian be reached.

The city physician has soft hands, soft skin, and soft clothes: we have soft hearts but hard hands; we are rough in our phrases, but true in our natures; our words do not speak one language and our actions another; what we mean we say, what we say we mean; our characters, when not original, are impressed upon us by the people we practise among and associate with, for such is the character of the pioneers and pre-emptionists of the swamp.

To sum up the whole, the city physician lives at the top of the pot, the swamp doctor scarcely at the rim of the skillet: one is a delicate carpet, which none but the nicest kid can press; the other is a cypress floor, in which the hobnails of every clown can stamp their shape: one is the breast of a chicken, the other is a muscle-shell full of cat-fish: one is quinine, the other Peruvian bark: and so on in the scale of proportions.

I have contrasted the two through the busy, moving scenes of life; let me keep the curtain from descending awhile, till I draw the last and awful contrast.

Stand by the death-bed of the two, in that last and solemn hour, when disease has prescribed for the patient, and death, acting the pharmacien, is filling the R. In a close, suffocating room, horizontalized on a feather bed; if a bachelor, attended by a mercenary nurse; his departure eagerly desired by a host of expectant, envious competitors; with the noise of drays, the shouts of the busy multitude, and the many discordant cries of the city ringing through his frame, the soul of the city physician leaves its mortal tenement and wings its way to heaven through several floors and thicknesses of mortar and brick, whilst the sobs of his few true friends float on the air strangely mingled with “Pies all hot!”

“The last 'erald!” and “Five dollars reward, five dollars reward, for the lost child of a disconsolate family!”

The swamp doctor is gathered unto his fathers 'neath the greenwood tree, couched on the yielding grass, with the soft melody of birds, the melancholy cadence of the summer wind, the rippling of the stream, the sweet smell of flowers, and the blue sky above bending down as if to embrace him, to soothe his spirit, and give his parting soul a glance of that heaven which surely awaits him as a recompense for all the privations he has endured on earth; whilst the pressure on his palm of hard and manly hands, the tears of women attached to him like a brother by the past kind ministerings of his Godlike calling, the sobs of children, and the boisterous grief of the poor negroes, attest that not unregarded or unloved he hath dwelt on earth: a sunbeam steals through the leafy canopy and clothes his brow with a living halo, a sweet smile pervades his countenance, and amidst all that is beauteous in nature or commendable in man, the swamp doctor sinks in the blissful luxuries of death; no more to undergo privation and danger, disease or suffering. He hath given his last

pill, had his last draught protested against; true to the instincts of his profession, he, no doubt, in the battling troop of the angels above, if feasible, will still continue to charge.

MY EARLY LIFE.

Upon what slender hinges the gate of a man's life turns, and what trifling things change the tenor of his being, and determine in a moment the direction of a lifetime! Who inhales his modicum of azote and oxygen, that cannot verify in his own person that we are the creatures of circumstances, and that there is a hidden divinity that shapes our ends, despite the endeavours of the pedagogue, man, to paddle them out of shape?

Some writer of celebrity has averred, and satisfactorily proven to all of his way of thinking, by a chain of logical deductions, that the war of 1812, the victory of New Orleans, the elevation of Jackson to the presidency, the annexation of Texas, General Taylor's not possessing the proportions of Hercules, and a sad accident that occurred to one of the best of families very recently, all was the inevitable effect of a quiet unobtrusive citizen in Maryland being charged some many years ago with hog stealing.

Were I writing a library instead of a volume, I would take up, for the satisfaction of my readers, link by link, the chain of consequences, from the mighty to the insignificant; also, if time and eternity permitted, trace the genealogy of the memorable porker (upon whose forcible seizure all these events depended), back to the time when Adam was not required to show a tailor's bill unpaid, as a portent of gentility, or Eve thought it a wife's duty to henpeck her husband.

As I cannot do this, I will, by an analogous example, show that equally—to me at least—important consequences have been deduced from as unimportant and remote causes; and that the writing of this volume, my being a swamp doctor in 1848, and having been steamboat cook, cabin-boy, gentleman of leisure, plough-boy, cotton-picker, and almost a printer, depended when I was ten years old on a young lady wearing “No. 2” shoes, when common sense and the size of her foot whispered “fives.” And now to show the connexion between these remote facts.

The death of my mother when I was very young breaking up our family circle, I became an inmate of the family of a married brother, whose wife, to an imperious temper, had, sadly for me, united the companionship of several younger brothers, whose associates I became when I entered her husband's door. Living in a free state, and his straitened circumstances permitting him but one hired servant, much of the family drudgery fell upon his wife, who up to my going there devolved a portion upon her brothers, but which all fell to my share as soon as I became domiciliated. I complained to my brother; but it was a younger brother arraigning a loved wife, and we all know how such a suit would be decided. Those only who have lived in similar circumstances can appreciate my situation; censured for errors and never praised for my industry, the scapegoat of the family and general errand-boy of the concern, waiting upon her brothers when I would fain have been at study or play, mine was anything but an enviable life. This condition of things continued until I had

passed my tenth year, when, grown old by drudgery and wounded feelings, I determined to put into effect a long-cherished plan, to run away and seek my fortune wheresoever chance might lead or destiny determine.

By day and by night for several years this thought had been upon me; it had grown with my growth, and acquired strength from each day's developement of fresh indignities, filling me with so much resolution, that the boy of ten had the mental strength of twenty to effect such a purpose. I occupied my few leisure hours in building airy castles of future fortune and distinction, and in marking out the preparatory road to make Providence my guide, and have the world before me, where to choose.

One evening, just at sunset, I was seated on the lintel of the street-door, nursing one of my nephews, and affecting to still his cries, the consequence of a spiteful pinch I had given him, to repay some indignity offered me by his mother, when my attention was attracted to a young lady, who, apparently in much suffering, was tottering along, endeavouring to support herself by her parasol, which she used as a cane. To look at me now with my single bed, buttonless shirts, premature wigdom, and haggard old-bachelor looks, you would scarcely think I am or was ever an admirer of the sex. But against appearances I have always been one; and boy as I was then, the sight of that young woman tottering painfully along, awoke all my sensibilities, and made the fountain of sympathy gush out as freely as a child swallowing lozenges. Overcoming my boyish diffidence, as she got opposite the door, I addressed her, “Miss, will you not stop and rest? I will get you a chair, and you can stay in the porch, if you will not come in the house.”

“Thank you, my little man,” she gasped out, and attempted to seat herself in the chair I had brought, but striking her foot against the step the pain was so great, that she shrieked out, and fell dead, as I thought, on the floor.

Frightened terribly to think I had brought dead folks home, I joined my yell to her scream, as a prolongation, which outcry brought my sister-in-law to the scene. The woman prevailing, she carried her in the house, and shutting the door to keep out curious eyes, which began to gather round, she set to restoring her uninvited guest, which she soon accomplished. As soon as she could speak, she gasped out, “Take them off, they are killing me!”—pointing to her feet. This, with difficulty, was effected, and their blood-stained condition showed how great must have been her torment. She announced herself as the daughter of a well-known merchant of the city, and begged permission to send me to her father's store, to request him to send a carriage for her. Assent being given, she gave me the necessary directions to find it, and off I started. It was near the river.

On my way to the place, as I reached the river, I overtook a gentleman apparently laden down with baggage. On seeing me he said, “My lad, I will give you a quarter if you will carry one of these bundles down to that steamboat,” pointing to one that was ringing her last bell previous to starting to New Orleans. This was a world of money to me then, and I readily agreed. Increasing our pace, we reached just in time the steamer, between which and the place he had accosted me, I had determined, as the present opportunity was a good one, to put in execution my long-cherished plan, and run away from my home then. Its accomplishment was easy. Following my employer on board, I received my quarter; but instead of going on shore, I secreted myself on board, until the continued puff of the steamer and the merry chant of the firemen assured me we were fairly under way, that I was fast leaving my late home and becoming a fugitive upon the face of the waters, dependent upon my childish exertions for my daily bread, without money, save the solitary quarter, without a change of

clothes; no friend to counsel me save the monitor within, a heart made aged and iron by contumely and youthful suffering.

Emerging from my concealment, I timidly sought the lower deck and sat me down upon the edge of the boat, and singling out some spark as it rose from the chimney, strove childishly to draw some augury of my future fate from its long continuance or speedy extinction.

The city was fast fading in the distance. I watched its receding houses, for, while they lasted, I felt as if I was not altogether without a home. A turn of the river hid it from sight, and my tears fell fast, for I was also leaving the churchyard which held my mother, and I then had not grown old enough to read life's bitterest page, to separate dream from reality, and know we could meet no more on earth; for oftentimes in the quiet calm of sleep, in the lonely hours of night, I had seen her bending over my tear-wet pillow, and praying for me the same sweet prayer that she prayed for me when I was her sinless youngest born, and I thought in leaving her grave I should never see her more, for how, when she should rise again at night, would she be able to find me, rambler as I was?

With this huge sorrow to dampen my joy at acquiring my liberty, chilled with the night air I was sinking into sleep in my dangerous seat, when the cook of the boat discovered me, and shaking me by the arm until I awoke, took me into the caboose, and giving me my supper, asked me, “What I was doing there, where I would be certain to fall overboard if I went to sleep?” I made up a fictitious tale, and finishing my story, asked him if he could assist me in getting some work on the boat to pay my passage, hinting I was not without experience in his department, in washing dishes, cleaning knives, &c. This was just to his hand; promising me employment and protection, he gave me a place to sleep in, which, fatigued as I was, I did not suffer long to remain unoccupied.