The Thrilling Experiences of a Mountain “Doctress”
A woman who with her husband and child had taken up her abode in a remote district was at first well received. She became interested in the little church and being of a bland disposition and an alert mind succeeded in passing the censorship with comparative credit. Unfortunately for herself and child the husband died and soon there were rumors that she was not showing a proper sense of bereavement. The local atmosphere became chilly and she decided that she must do something to indicate proper devotion to her husband’s memory.
About fifteen miles away, there was a distant cousin of her late husband who was a dealer in monuments. To him she appeared one day and mournfully announced her desire to erect a monument to her late husband. She admitted that she had no money to pay for it, but said she had a piece of land with a house upon it and that she would willingly sacrifice that property to ensure the creation of a suitable memorial. The dealer and incidental relative was very favorably disposed, not only to the ingratiating widow, but to what apparently was a promising venture. A trade was soon made, the widow departed and in a short time the monument was properly erected in the cemetery. Nothing was said at that time as to a transfer of the real estate, but some weeks later the dealer being in the town where it was located, decided to take a look at his new property. He found a small irregular patch of rocks and bushes with a tumbledown rough board shanty upon it. A few inquiries soon made it clear that the joke was on him and he never made any move to secure a title. After a time the humor of the transaction overcame his disgust at the trick and he told the story on himself, to the great joy of those better acquainted with the characteristics of the widow.
It must be regretfully chronicled, however, that even the monument failed to reinstate the lady in the good graces of her feminine neighbors. She was lonely, very short of cash and possessed of an inventive mind; naturally there were developments. For years there was no lack of conversational topics in that community, at least among the women.
Shortly after the monument episode there appeared an imposing looking sign on the front of the widow’s residence, containing her name with the very unusual title, “Doctress.” Such medical knowledge as she possessed was not claimed to be the result of any special study but rather the evidence of some extraordinary intuition. There were plenty of similar instances in the days before the practice of medicine was legally restricted. It soon became apparent that the widow’s patients were chiefly resident boarders, generally one or two lonely old widowers. In a vague sense, therefore, it may be seen that the widow had forecast in her mind the general idea of the sanitarium, then practically unknown. The hum of gossip reached a high crescendo and the sanitarium project was soon abandoned—not however, because of the gossip but for lack of sufficient clinical material to pay expenses. Thereupon the people of the township began to wonder what would happen next. They didn’t have long to wait.
Although the possessor of extraordinary gifts in the healing art, the widow had other talents which were not kept in obscurity. She “dickered” in real estate in a necessarily small way and was a horse trader of recognized ability. But her ambition at this time was in the medical field and having removed to commodious quarters she announced her great discovery, “The Mountain Envigorator.”
Although this panacea was widely heralded as calculated to relieve most of the physical ills of mankind, and although Emerson, the Sage, has pictured in graphic language the great procession of people who would eagerly penetrate the trackless wilderness to do business with the inventor of a better mouse trap than the one probably in use at the Philosopher’s Concord residence, there was singular apathy manifest regarding the Envigorator. Sales were very, very slow and expenses large.
However, the widow was resourceful. She fitted out a two-horse pedlar’s cart and engaged an assistant to travel about with her and help introduce her remedy.
Thereupon for a season the money began to flow back to the widow’s purse. But such prosperity was too obvious to the assistant who soon began to clamor for an exorbitant salary. It was a crisis and must be met and was met.
At this time the widow’s personal charms had become somewhat mellowed with age, but she decided to exercise them. The young man with a fortune in sight soon succumbed and they were married.
It will probably occasion no surprise to relate that the husband’s financial demands soon exceeded his most preposterous claims as an employee. Dissensions arose, the business languished and the bridegroom departed. The widow also went away, never to return, but before leaving she accomplished a master stroke which aroused the admiration of the most censorious women of the countryside.
In a nearby village there was a woman who had succeeded in making herself feared for her vindictive type of gossip. She had long specialized on the widow’s affairs. Not content with revealing what she knew, she finally surpassed herself with a story which could easily be shown to be false. The victim saw her opportunity and the romancer was given her choice of an immediate retraction or jail. A day or two later the widow and the gossiping dame made the rounds of the village and adjacent farms. At each call the hostess was informed by the widow that her companion had an explanation to make. Whereupon the woman of the poison tongue would proceed to relate that in telling the story in question, she had drawn wholly upon her imagination. Before the housewife could recover from her astonishment at such an unprecedented narrative, the widow and her victim would have departed to convey the glad tidings elsewhere.
While there are few who can surpass the typical New England Yankee as a natural shrewd trader, there are numerous residents of that section of Canadian-French, Irish or Italian ancestry, who are amply qualified to hold their own. A conspicuous example of this type of shrewdness is recorded in which an Irishman, widely known as “Tim,” took the leading part.