Doctor Calomel undertook the cure in a new and original manner, to wit, without the use of medicine. He wrought upon the mysterious cowdriver to come to the widow's house, and tell her the whole secret of the business. When he came into the room the sick woman raised herself up, and in a faint voice addressed him as follows:—
“Mysterious man! I conjure thee to tell me what under the sun makes thee always follow that cow about every day at the same hour, and at the same distance from her tail?”
“Because the cow always goes before me!” replied the mysterious man.
Upon which the widow jumped out of her sick bed, seized an old shoe, fired it at the mysterious man's head, and was miraculously cured from that moment. Doctor Calomel got into great practice thereupon.
Shearjashub inherited a considerable share of his mother's inquiring disposition, and was very inquisitive about the affairs of other people; but, to do him justice, he took pretty good care to keep his own to himself, like a discreet lad as he was. Having invented so many labour-saving machines, Jashub, as he was usually called by the neighbours, thought it was great nonsense to work himself; so he set his machines going, and took to the amusement of killing time, which, in a country village, is no such easy matter. It required a considerable share of ingenuity. His favourite mode of doing this was taking his gun on his shoulder, and sallying forth into the fields and woods, followed by a cur, whose genealogy was perfectly mysterious. Nobody could tell to what family he belonged; certain it was, that he was neither “mongrel, puppy, whelp, nor hound,” but a cur of low degree, whose delight was to bask in the sun when he was not out with his young master.
In this way Jashub would pass day after day, in what he called sporting; that is to say, toiling through tangled woods and rough bog meadows and swamps, that quivered like a jelly at every step, and returning home at night hungry as well as tired. Report said that he never was known to shoot anything; and thus far his time was spent innocently, if not improvingly.
One fast-day, early in the spring of 1776, Jashub went forth as usual, with his gun on his shoulder, and little Snap (such was the name of the dog) at his heels. The early May had put on all her charms; a thousand little patches of wild violets were peeping forth with deep blue eyes; a thousand, yea, tens of thousands of little buds were expanding into leaves apace; and crowds of chirping birds were singing a hymn to the jolly laughing spring. Jashub could not find it in his heart to fire at them; but if he had, there would have been no danger, except of frightening the little warblers, and arresting their song.
Beguiled by the beauties of Nature and her charming music, Jashub almost unconsciously wandered on until he came to the opening of a deep glen in the mountain, which rose at some miles distance, west of the village. It was formed by the passage of a pure crystal stream, which, in the course of ages, or perhaps by a single effort, had divided the mountain about the space of twenty yards, ten of which were occupied by the brook, which silently wound its way along the edge of steep and rocky precipices several hundred feet high, that formed the barriers of the glen on either side. These towering perpendicular masses of gray eternity were here and there green with the adventurous laurel, which, fastening its roots in the crevices, nodded over the mighty steep in fearful dizziness. Here and there a little spring gushed forth high up among the graybeard rocks, and trickled down their sides in silvery brightness. In other places patches of isinglass appeared, sparkling against the sober masses, and communicating a singularly lustrous character to the scene, which had otherwise been all gloomy solitude.
Jashub gazed a while in apprehensive wonder, as he stood at the entrance of these everlasting gates. Curiosity prompted him to enter, and explore the recesses within, while a certain vague unwillingness deterred him. At length curiosity, or perhaps fate, which had decreed that he should become the instrument of her great designs, prevailed against all opposition, and he entered the gates of this majestic palace of nature. He slowly advanced, sometimes arrested by a certain feeling of mysterious awe; at others driven on by the power which had assumed the direction of his conduct, until he arrived at the centre of the hallowed solitude. Not a living thing breathed around him, except his little dog, and his gun trembled in his hand. All was gloom, silence, solitude, deep and profound. The brook poured forth no murmurs, the birds and insects seemed to have shunned the unsunned region, where everlasting twilight reigned; and the scream of the hawks, pursuing their way across the deep chasm, was hushed as they passed.
Jashub was arrested by the melancholy grandeur of the scene, and his dog looked wistfully in his face, as if he wanted to go home. As he stood thus lingering, leaning on his gun, a merry strain broke forth upon the terrible silence, and echoed through the glen. The sound made him suddenly start, in doing which his foot somehow or other caught in the lock of his gun, which he had forgot to uncock, as was usual with him, and caused it to go off. The explosion rang through the recesses of the glen in a hundred repetitions, which were answered by the howlings of the little dog. As the echoes gradually subsided, and the smoke cleared away, the music again commenced. It was a careless, lively air, such as suited the taste of the young man, and he forgot his fears in his love of music.