‘I left ’em singing hymns and I went down to old Conrad Gerhard. He wasn’t at all surprised when I told him I was young Gert Schwankfelder that was. He knew Toby. His wife she walked me into the back yard without a word, and she washed me and she cut my hair to the edge of a basin, and she put me to bed, and Oh! how I slept—how I slept in that little room behind the oven looking on the flower garden! I didn’t know Toby went to the Embuscade that night and bought me off Dr. Karaguen for twelve dollars and a dozen bottles of Seneca Oil. Karaguen wanted a new lace to his coat, and he reckoned I hadn’t long to live; so he put me down as “discharged sick."’
‘I like Toby,’ said Una.
‘Who was he?’ said Puck.
‘Apothecary Tobias Hirte,’ Pharaoh replied. ‘One Hundred and Eighteen, Second Street—the famous Seneca Oil man, that lived half of every year among the Indians. But let me tell my tale my own way, same as his brown mare used to go to Lebanon.’
‘Then why did he keep her in Davy Jones’s locker?’ Dan asked.
‘That was his joke. He kept her under David Jones’s hat shop in the "Buck” tavern yard, and his Indian friends kept their ponies there when they visited him. I looked after the horses when I wasn’t rolling pills on top of the old spinet, while he played his fiddle and Red Jacket sang hymns. I liked it. I had good victuals, light work, a suit o’ clean clothes, a plenty music, and quiet, smiling German folk all around that let me sit in their gardens. My first Sunday, Toby took me to his church in Moravian Alley; and that was in a garden too. The women wore long-eared caps and handkerchiefs. They came in at one door and the men at another, and there was a brass chandelier you could see your face in, and a nigger-boy to blow the organ bellows. I carried Toby’s fiddle, and he played pretty much as he chose all against the organ and the singing. He was the only one they let do it, for they was a simple-minded folk. They used to wash each other’s feet up in the attic to keep ’emselves humble: which Lord knows they didn’t need.’
‘How very queer,’ said Una.
Pharaoh’s eyes twinkled. ‘I’ve met many and seen much,’ he said; ‘but I haven’t yet found any better or quieter or forbearinger people than the Brethren and Sistern of the Moravian Church in Philadelphia. Nor will I ever forget my first Sunday—the service was in English that week—with the smell of the flowers coming in from Pastor Meder’s garden where the big peach tree is, and me looking at all the clean strangeness and thinking of ’tween decks on the Embuscade only six days ago. Being a boy, it seemed to me it had lasted for ever, and was going on for ever. But I didn’t know Toby then. As soon as the dancing clock struck midnight that Sunday—I was lying under the spinet—I heard Toby’s fiddle. He’d just done his supper, which he always took late and heavy. "Gert,” says he, “get the horses. Liberty and Independence for ever! The flowers appear upon the earth and the time of the singing of birds is come. We are going to my country seat in Lebanon."
‘I rubbed my eyes, and fetched ’em out of the “Buck” stable. Red Jacket was there saddling his, and when I’d packed the saddle-bags we three rode up Race Street to the Ferry by starlight. So we went travelling. It’s a kindly, softly country there, back of Philadelphia among the German towns, Lancaster way. Little houses and bursting big barns, fat cattle, fat women, and all as peaceful as Heaven might be if they farmed there. Toby sold medicines out of his saddle-bags, and gave the French war-news to folk along the roads. Him and his long-hilted umberell was as well known as the stage coaches. He took orders for that famous Seneca Oil which he had the secret of from Red Jacket’s Indians, and he slept in friend’s farmhouses, but he would shut all the windows; so Red Jacket and me slept outside. There’s nothing to hurt except snakes—and they slip away quick enough if you thrash in the bushes.’
‘I’d have liked that!’ said Dan.