“Well, if you will get the patrol we will go.”
I walked down to the guard-house and represented to the sergeant of the guard the importance of having wild peach bark and the necessity of going out to get it.
The sergeant first raised the usual difficulties and then gave the usual order. A stout gentleman, who helped himself to a double-barrelled gun, informed us that he would go as Pat Roll. He sketched briefly his life for us by stating that he was born in South Carolina, raised in Alabama, druv stage in Florida, and sogered it in Texas. He also expressed the opinion that Texas was an easy country to live in, “because the hogs run in the woods and the horses run out,” and he intimated that he looked with great contempt on those parts of the world where the hogs eat corn, and the horses live in the stable.
As I was still weak I handed my axe over to one of the others. We crossed the brook and near by found a wild peach. It was soon cut down, and we proceeded as usual to shave off the bark from the trunk of the tree, and then pull up such roots as would come. When this was done each of my companions loaded himself with an unpeeled log, while I took the axe and basket of bark. Thus laden, we started to return.
“Since we are working for the Herb Department,” said I, “let us take up some yapon and try the tea. I wonder if I can cut off this branch with one hand?”
A well-leaved branch of the yapon hung over the road, bright with red berries, and against it I raised the axe. A couple of blows brought it down. Mr. Stratford added it to his load, and with it we went back to our quarters.
A day or two passed, during which the weather moderated. It was Saturday afternoon, and I was sitting in the sun, still languid, while Mr. Stratford was trying to heat red-hot an old shovel he had found, in order that he might cut off its rivets and fit in it a new handle, when the thought of the yapon came into my head, I took up the branch and began to pluck off the leaves.
“Are you going to try the yapon?” said Lieutenant Sherman, who casually came in.
“Yes, and I want you to go up to the galley and dry the leaves.”
“Oh, why don’t you take them green? That’s the way the sailors do.”