Wall, she hadn't hardly got out of the back door, when Josiah Allen came in in awful distress, he had got a thorn in his foot, he had put on an old pair of boots, and there wuz a hole in the side of one of 'em, and the thorn had got in through the hole. It pained him dretfully, and he wuz jest as crazy as a loon for the time bein'. And he hollered the first thing that "he wanted some of Hall's salve." And I told him "there wuzn't a mite in the house."
And he hollered up and says, "There would be some if there wuz any sense in the head of the house."
I glanced up mechanically at his bald head, but didn't say nothin', for I see it wouldn't do. And he hollered out agin, "Why hain't there any Hall's salve?" Sez I, "Because old Hall has been dead for years and years, and hain't made any salve."
"Wall, he wouldn't have been dead if he had had any care took of him," he yelled out.
"Why," sez I, "he wuz killed by lightnin'; struck down entirely onexpected five years ago last summer."
"Oh, argue and dispute with a dying man. Gracious Peter! what will become of me!" he groaned out, a-holdin' his foot in his hand.
Sez I, "Let me put some Pond's Extract on it, Josiah."
"Pond's Extract!" he yelled, and then he called that good remedy words I wuz ashamed to hear him utter.
And he jumped round and pranced and kicked just as it is the nater of man to act under bodily injury of that sort. And then he ordered me to take a pin and get the thorn out, and then acted mad as a hen at me all the time I wuz a-doin' it; acted jest as if I wuz a-prickin' him a-purpose.