On one occasion this advance came near having serious consequences. I had compounded some pills containing a minute quantity of elaterium. The doctor gave them to a neighboring youth affected with a slight indisposition in which some such remedy was indicated. The directions were very explicit,—one pill every hour until the desired effect was produced.
"Pshaw," said the patient's brother, "there's nothin' but weeds in them pills, and a dozen of them won't hurt you."
The idea of taking weed pills one at a time seemed too ridiculous, and so the whole number were swallowed at a dose. The result was, happily, not fatal, though impressive enough to greatly increase the respect of the young man's family for our medicines.
The intellectual life was not wholly wanting in the village. A lodge of a temperance organization, having its headquarters in Maine, was formed at a neighboring village. It was modeled somewhat after the fashion of the Sons of Temperance. The presiding officer, with a high sounding title, was my mother's cousin, Tommy Nixon. He was the most popular young man of the neighborhood. The rudiments of a classical education gained at a reputable academy in Sackville had not detracted from his qualities as a healthy, rollicking young farmer. The lodge had an imposing ritual of which I well remember one feature. At stated intervals a password which admitted a member of any one lodge to a meeting of any other was received from the central authority—in Maine, I believe. It was never to be pronounced except to secure admission, and was communicated to the members by being written on a piece of paper in letters so large that all could read. After being held up to view for a few moments, the paper was held in the flame of a candle with these words: "This paper containing our secret password I commit to the devouring element in token that it no longer exists save in the minds of the faithful brethren." The fine sonorous voice of the speaker and his manly front, seen in the lurid light of the burning paper, made the whole scene very impressive.
There was also a society for the discussion of scientific questions, of which the founder and leading spirit was a youth named Isaac Steves, who was beginning the study of medicine. The president was a "Worthy Archon." Our discussions strayed into the field of physiological mysteries, and got us into such bad odor with Mrs. Foshay and, perhaps, other ladies of the community, that the meetings were abandoned.
A soil like that of the Provinces at this time was fertile in odd characters including, possibly, here and there, a "heart pregnant with celestial fire." One case quite out of the common line was that of two or three brothers employed in a sawmill somewhere up the river Petticodiac. According to common report they had invented a new language in order to enable them to talk together without their companions knowing what they were saying. I knew one of them well and, after some time, ventured to inquire about this supposed tongue. He was quite ready to explain it. The words were constructed out of English by the very simple process of reversing the syllables or the spelling. Everything was pronounced backward. Those who heard it, and knew the key, had no difficulty in construing the words; to those who did not, the words were quite foreign.
The family of the neighborhood in which I was most intimate was that of a Scotch farmer named Parkin. Father, mother, and children were very attractive, both socially and intellectually, and in later years I wondered whether any of them were still living. Fifty years later I had one of the greatest and most agreeable surprises of my life in suddenly meeting the little boy of the family in the person of Dr. George R. Parkin, the well-known promoter of imperial federation in Australia and the agent in arranging for the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford which are assigned to America.
My duties were of the most varied character. I composed a little couplet designating my professions as those of
Physician, apothecary, chemist, and druggist,
Girl about house and boy in the barn.
I cared for the horse, cut wood for the fire, searched field and forest for medicinal herbs, ordered other medicines from a druggist [3] in St. John, kept the doctor's accounts, made his pills, and mixed his powders. This left little time for reading and study, and such exercises were still farther limited by the necessity of pursuing them out of sight of the housewife.