The intellectual attainments of the Doctor, it must be admitted, were not of the highest order. He was a student of men rather than of books. He had journeyed but little along the flowery paths of literature. He never gave "local habitation or name" to the particular Medical College which had honored him with its degree. He was, as he often asserted, of the "epleptic" school of medicine. In reply to my inquiry as to what that really was, he solemnly asservated that it was the only school which permitted its practitioners to accept all that was good, and reject all that was bad, of all the other schools. In his practice he had a supreme contempt for what he called "written proscriptions," and often boasted that he never allowed one of them to go out of his office. He infinitely preferred to compound his own medicines, which, with the aid of mortar and pestle, he did in unstinted measure in his office. On rainy days and during extremely healthy seasons, his stock was thereby largely augmented. In administering his "doses" his generous spirit manifested itself as clearly as along other lines. No "pent-up Utica" contracted his powers. It has been many times asserted, and with apparent confidence, that no patient of his ever complained of not having received full measure. There were no Oliver Twists among his patients. It was a singular fact in all the professional experience of this eminent practitioner, that his patients, regardless of age or sex, were all afflicted with a like malady. Many a time as he returned from a professional visit, mounted on his old roan, with his bushel measure medicine bag thrown across his saddle, in answer to my casual inquiry as to the ailment of his patient, he gave in oracular tones, the one all-sufficient reply, "only a slight derangement of the nervous system."
He never quite forgave Mr. Lincoln the reply he once made to an ill-advised interruption of the Doctor during a political speech. "Well, well, Doctor," replied Mr. Lincoln, good-humoredly, "I will take anything from you except your medicines."
The Doctor was a bachelor, and his "May of life" had fallen into the sear and yellow leaf at the time of which we write. He was still, however, as he more than once assured me, an ardent admirer of "the opposing sect."
In one of his most confidential moods, he disclosed to me the startling fact that he had in early life been the victim of a misplaced confidence. In an unguarded moment he entrusted the idol of his heart to the safe keeping of a friend, in the whiteness of whose soul he trusted as in a mother's love, while he, the confiding Doctor, journeyed westward to seek a home.
"He knew not the doctrine of ill-doing,
Nor dreamed that any did."
Alas for human frailty, "the badge of all our race." Upon his return after an absence of several moons, he found to his unspeakable dismay that that same "friend" had taken to wife the idol whose image had so long found lodgment in the Doctor's own sad heart. Too late he realized, as wiser men have done before and since, that
"Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love."
The Doctor was much given at times to what he denominated "low down talks" such as are wont when kindred souls hold close converse. Seated in my office on one occasion, at the hour when churchyards yawn, and being as he candidly admitted in a somewhat "reminiscent" mood, he unwittingly gave expression to thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls, when I made earnest inquiry, "Doctor, what in your judgment as a medical man is to be the final destination of the human soul?" The solemn hour of midnight, together with the no less solemn inquiry, at once plunged the Doctor into deep thought. First carefully changing his quid from the right to the left jaw, he slowly and as if thoughtfully measuring his words, replied: "Brother Stevenson, the solar system are one of which I have given very little reflection."
It is a sad fact that in this world the best of men are not wholly exempt from human frailties. Even in the noble calling of medicine there have been at times slight outcroppings of a spirit of professional jealousy. That the subject of these brief chronicles was no exception to this infirmity will appear from a remark he once made in regard to a professional contemporary whose practice had gradually encroached upon the Doctor's beat. Said he: "They talk a good deal about this Doc Wilson's practice; but I'll 'low that my books will show a greater degree of mortality than what hisn will."
The Doctor was one of the regular boarders at the historic inn already mentioned. By long and faithful service he had won the honored position of chief boarder, and his place by common consent was at the head of the table. No one who ever sat at that delightful board could forget the dignified manner in which the Doctor would take his accustomed seat, and without unnecessary delay proceed to appropriate whatever viands might be within his reach. As a matter of especial grace upon the part of the good landlady, an old-fashioned corn pone and a pitcher of sweet milk appeared occasionally upon the supper table of this most excellent inn. Such visitations were truly regarded, even by the veterans, as very oases in the desert of life. Now, it so happened, that upon a cold December evening, between the first and second tolling of the supper bell, the boarders in anxious expectancy were awaiting the final summons, in a small chamber hard by the dining-room. To this assembly the writer hereof remarked: "It seems to me, gentlemen, that it has been a long time since we have been favored with pone bread and sweet milk. I therefore move that Doctor John be appointed a committee of one to request Mrs. Sparks to have these delicacies for supper to-morrow night."