"'You wouldn't think so,' says the postmaster's wife, 'if it was your foot that had the mistake on it.' She was awful mad at first, but, after she got calmed down, the book-woman told her what she meant."
"'There ain't no pain nor disease in the world,' she says. 'It's all imagination.'
"'Well,' says the postmaster's wife, 'when the swellin' is so bad, how'm I to undeceive myself?'
"The book-woman says: 'Just deny it, and affirm the existence of good. You just set down and say to yourself: "I can't have no bunion cause there ain't no such thing, and it can't hurt me because there is no such thing as pain. My foot is perfectly well and strong. I will get right up and walk."'
"As soon as the woman was gone out with her stamps, the postmaster's wife tried it and like to have fainted dead away. She said she might have been able to convince her mind that there wasn't no bunion on her foot, but she couldn't convince her foot. She said there wasn't no such thing as pain, and the bunion made it its first business to do a little denyin' on its own account. You have to be awful careful not to offend a bunion.
A Test
"This mornin', while Roger was gone after them long, narrow pills that has to be swallowed endways unless you want to choke to death, I reckoned I'd try it on my back. So I says, right out loud: 'My back don't hurt me. It is all imagination. I can't have no pain because there ain't no such thing.' Then I stood up right quick, and—Lord!"
Miss Mattie shook her head sadly at the recollection. "Do you know," she went on, thoughtfully, "I wish that woman at the hotel had lumbago?"
Doctor Conrad's nice brown eyes twinkled, and his mouth twitched, ever so slightly. "I'm afraid I do, too," he said.