The most astonished boy I ever beheld was a little country lad who came to have a tooth drawn. “He thought it must be fun,” his mother said; “but he never had one drawn, and knows nothing of it.”
“O!” with a great, round mouth, was all he had time to say, but the expression of astonishment depicted on that striking countenance, glaring eyes, and by the expressive, spasmodic “O!” I never can forget or describe; and he caught his hat and ran home, a distance of two miles, without stopping, while his mother followed in the carriage by which they came. The boy’s idea was summed up as follows:—
“The doctor hitched tight onto the tooth with his pinchers, then he pulled his first best, and just before it killed me, the tooth came out, and so I run home.”
“Taking it out in trade” is all very well when the arrangement is mutual; but there are occasions when the advantages are imperceptible, at least to one party, as thus:—
“What’s the matter, Jerry?” asked old Mr. ——, as Jeremiah was jogging by, growling most furiously.
“Matter ’nough,” replied old Jerry. “There I’ve been luggin’ water all the morning for the doctor’s wife to wash with, and what do you s’pose she give me for it?”
“About ninepence.”
“Ninepence? No! She told me the doctor would pull a tooth for me some time, when he got leisure.”