Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1858.
LAMENTATIONS OF A GRAHAMITE.
At the advent of Homœopathy a physician said: “There, Branch, take one drop every hour, and if you feel a twitch in the arms, or fingers, or toes, describe your electric thrills as accurately as possible, and let me see your notes when we meet again.” The anticipated twitches in the far extremities alarmed us, lest our heart might get a slight twitch, and we be very suddenly twitched into the grim abode of withered skeletons. We were eating Graham bread at this time with Horace Greeley, in Barclay street, and averaged about eight loaves a day between us, exclusive of the mush and stewed apples. An allopathic physician had assured us that all our fat was gone, save a small chunk near the spleen, and Horace warned us to take no medicine, but to duck our carcase every day, which would soon bring to the surface all the indiscretions of early years, as he had long averaged two baths a day, which produced two hundred boils, of which only twenty-eight remained. So, on a winter’s morning, about five o’clock, we entered a little Egyptian mummy canvas perpendicular box, (before the introduction of the blessed Croton,) and hooked the canvas pine-frame door, and pulled the string, and down came the icy water. In our thrilling despair and unconsciousness, we grasped the string, like a drowning man a straw, and jerked and re-jerked it, until we broke the entire upper cistern arrangements, when down came ten hogsheads of rain water on our poor head, and washed away the mummy box, and us with it. After a Jonah scuffle, we crawled out of the box, and opened the bath-room door, and screamed fire, and murder, and sea-weed, and ran down stairs, with ten hogsheads of water at our heels. We ran into the kitchen, where the servants slept, who sprang from their beds, and ran into the street, and yelled, and aroused the neighbors,—and hens cackled, and cats mewed, and dogs barked, in all directions. We seized a tub and dashed up stairs against the overwhelming torrent, and found about forty lean Grahamites, up to their knees in water, and poor MacDonald Clarke and Horace Greeley among them, bailing for their lives, in their nocturnal mantles. Chairs, and books, and umbrellas, were floating on the bosom of the waters, and the scene resembled the devastation of Noah’s deluge, or the encampment of California miners, at the rise and desolation of the Sacramento and her tributary streams. The walls were soon re-plastered, and new carpets laid, and chaos and saturation departed. We partially recovered from the bathing concussion, but were slowly wasting, and approaching the Spirit land, when we consulted an allopathic physician, (who was an old friend of ours,) who told us that Graham bread and mush had diminished and nearly paralyzed our kidneys, and that we must drink gin or die. We told him that our Father was President of the Rhode Island State Temperance Society, and that we belonged to three Teetotal Societies, and was President of one, and Recording Secretary of another, and that we could not drink gin, although we might possibly go ginger pop, without violating the Constitution of either Society. The Doctor then said: “Well, Branch, give me both hands, and let me also embrace you most fervently, and even kiss you, as you will probably die in about three days, and I shall never see you again, until I come to your funeral. Good by, my good fellow, and may God bless you in the other world.” “Good Lord, Doctor, don’t go—but bring on your gin, and I’ll drink a gallon to begin with, and more if you say so. I’m not prepared to die, and dam the Temperance Societies, where life and death and decayed kidneys are involved.” He then went to the Astor House, and got a quart of the purest gin, and told us to drink freely of it, which we did, and soon felt so happy that we arose from our bed, and went to Mitchell’s Olympic Theatre, where the sweet Mary Taylor was placarded for the Child of the Regiment, and Mitchell for Jem Bags. The gin had now got the better of us, and we talked, and laughed, and hissed the actors, until Mitchell approached the foot-lights, and made an inflammatory speech against us, when a deafening shout arose: “Put him out! put him out!” and out we went, in a mighty hurry, over the heads of ladies and gentlemen. On reaching the outer door, a policeman saw us, whom we had learned to read and write, who accompanied us to the Graham House, and left us at the street door. We staggered up stairs, and got into the bed room of two nervous old maids, who were rigid Grahamites, and as thin as shads, who screamed so frightfully, that we got out as soon as possible, lest they would scratch our eyes out, and tear us to bleeding tatters. We then got into the bed room of Horace Greeley, who poked out his bald head from his straw pillow and scanty Graham bed-clothes, and exclaimed: “Who’s there?” “Thou pale and ghastly shadow! what dost thou in my bed? How dare you enter the sacred precincts of my domestic castle?” “Yon dam drunken vagabond! you are a liar, if you say I’m in your bed. This is my room, and my couch, and if you don’t leave, I’ll throw my boot at your bewildered skull.—Hence! thou miserable sot! Away!” We then approached him, and sat on the side of his narrow cot, and stroked his chin, when he gave us a tremendous blow, in the face, and made our nose bleed copiously. He then arose, and perceiving who we were, expressed the deepest sorrow, and bathed our nostrils, and led us to our room in the attic, and undressed us, and put us to bed, and tucked in the blankets, and after a scathing lecture against intemperance, he left us with a fond good night. We sent for our gin physician, who said that whoever cured us, must cure our nerves, and he could not do it. This we regarded as our final knell, and we began to read the Bible and hymn book, and prepare for death. But a homœopathic physician was strongly recommended, whom we consulted, who gave us phosphorus and aconitum, which revived us like galvanic batteries, and he then told us to exchange Graham bread and mush for beef-soup and tenderloin, and we recovered rapidly. We were teaching a lad, whose dear little sister had the dysentery, with two allopathic butchers in attendance, who, after bleeding, and leeching, and blistering, and suffusing her system with mercury, recommended brandy as a last resort. The little angel had her last fit, as was supposed, and as her father was exhausted and bed-ridden with grief and a burning fever, we went for a coffin towards midnight, and entered a store where there was a lamp in its expiring rays, and rang the bell, when in the drear and narrow perspective, we beheld the lank and greedy grave-digger in his shirt and pants, and black nightcap, approaching us, in about the measured pace of “Hamlet’s Ghost.”—He had a dark lantern, and seemed a hideous spectre emerging from the regions of the dead. We were extremely nervous, and awfully dyspeptic, and unusually depressed from the protracted storm, and could endure his fearful aspect no longer, and when within five paces of our trembling person, we darted from the coffin store, and ran as though the evil Nicholas was after us. The sexton suspected us for a thief, and chased us several blocks, but we flew like a whirlwind, and the devil himself could not have caught us. On reaching the abode of the suffering innocent, we found that she had emerged from the last fit, and off we scampered for the homœopathic physician who had saved our life with phosphorus, and aconitum, and beef soup, and tenderloin. We aroused him from his couch, and we were by the side of the little invalid in twenty minutes, when the Doctor removed a tooth, (her jaws being apparently closed in death,) and deposited about four drops of medicine in her mouth, which was continued during the night, and at twelve, meridian, she ate egg and potato combined, with milk, and in five days she rollicked all over the house. While conducting the Matsell Investigation, we wrote a Disquisition on Worms, and Mrs. Doughty, (the amiable wife of Mr. Doughty, who was long connected with the New York Street Department, and whose lovely daughter married a member of the great Banking House of Prime, Ward, & King,) called on the noble and supremely beautiful Mrs. Alderman John H. Briggs, and said: “I reside near Newark, New Jersey. My husband’s name is Samuel S. Doughty, (who was Street Commissioner of the City of New York in 1844 and ‘45,) and is very wealthy, and has erected a mansion that will compare with any in New Jersey. We have spacious grounds, and gardens, and orchards, and horses, and carriages, and all that can render us happy in the evening of our days, and yet we are very miserable. A dark cloud hovers over our magnificent abode, that we fear will soon belch the elements of destruction, and overwhelm us all in one common ruin. I have a sweet, and intellectual, and generous-hearted daughter, whose rare conversational powers, and vocal and instrumental music, cheered us in other days, who has been chained to a couch of illness more than two years. So disconsolate is her heart, that she will not permit her rosy and curly children to enter her apartment, nor a solitary mortal, save myself and husband. Her stomach rejects every species of food, and she has the piles most awfully, and several other diseases. Doctors Parker and Mott, and other eminent Americans, and two distinguished European physicians, have crossed the Atlantic, and toiled long and hard for her restoration. Now, my dear Mrs. Briggs, please listen very attentively to what I am about to disclose. A week since, I discovered a long article on Worms in the New York Daily Times, signed by Stephen H. Branch, and read it to my daughter, to elicit, if possible, a smile from her sad face. But I had scarcely closed it, ere she partially arose in her bed, and fixed her excited eyes upon me, and most terribly alarmed me, as she had not arisen in her bed for months, without assistance, and I said: ‘Why, my dear child, did you arise without my aid, and why, dear Caroline, do you stare so at your mother?’ She waved her hand, and faintly cried: ‘Go on, dear mother, go on, and let me again hear the delightful music of those words. I am saved, mother, I am saved, and Stephen H. Branch is my deliverer. Read, mother, read, and gladden the heart of poor Caroline.’ And I read it again, and she alternately wept and laughed until I closed it, and then she softly laid her head upon her pillow, and crossed her arms on her excited and swelling bosom, and breathed a prayer to God for the preservation of Mr. Branch, until she could behold him. Her words were perfect inspiration, and I cried until my eyes were highly inflamed, and until I almost fell upon the floor, and I dared not cry more, and I had to leave her and call my husband, who came and relieved me. She had not slept without laudanum for months, but in ten minutes after I closed Mr. Branch’s article on Worms, she passed into a gentle and natural slumber, and did not awake until the following day at meridian. And her repose imparted a rainbow glow to her icy cheeks, and exchanged roses for lilies. And she beckoned me to her bedside, and softly said: ‘Mother: I want you to visit Mr. Branch, as I believe I have got worms, and I am sure, from his glowing and truthful Dissertation on this novel theme, that he fully understands my case, which the most eminent physicians have failed to fathom.’ I smiled, and assured her that it would be useless. But for several days she has afforded me no peace, such have been her importunities for me to see Mr. Branch. And as I conceived it very dangerous to oppose her will, in her critical condition, I have come, and I desire you to exert all your influence to induce Mr. Branch to accompany me to my residence in the suburbs of Newark, and see my beloved child, who will salute him like a brother and deliverer, and who is nearly distracted to behold him.” Mrs. Briggs sent for us, and we personally responded on the following day, when we told her that we were chasing Matsell night and day, and could not spare the time to visit Newark invalids; nor did we desire to, as we were not a practical physician, and if we assumed the awful responsibility of treating chronic piles and worms, if a patient died while under our care, we might be arrested for murder, and be tried by a jury packed by Dick Connolly, as County Clerk, and be condemned and hung. So, in comes Mrs. Doughty again, and again, and through her tears, and those thrilling and irresistible apostrophes of a devoted mother, she touches the magic cord in the heart of Mrs. Briggs, who resolved to get me to Newark, if possible. So, she comes at me like General Putnam’s or Samson’s wives, and demands me to visit Newark to gratify the invalid’s curiosity to see me, as a matter of humanity, and said that if I did not go, the daughter might die in a fit, and I would be responsible to God and man, and to woman also, for she, herself, would forever hold me responsible for the premature demise of the pale divinity of Newark. So, we proposed to go, if her husband, Alderman John H. Briggs, would accompany us. We then winked to Jack, and he hesitated, which pleased us well, and we peremptorily declined to go. But Mrs. Briggs then flew at Jack with a fork and pepper box, and Jack yielded like a docile lamb, and we also had to go, or perhaps receive the perforation of a fork, or a gill of pepper in our eyes, or listen to a tongue that might have blistered our conscience. So we saw our extraordinary physician, who had ejected eleven worms from our belly, (one of which was tied in a square knot,) and over we went to Jersey City, where Mr. Doughty, and the most beautiful horses and carriage, with driver and postilion, anxiously awaited our arrival, and on we go to the suburbs of Newark, crossing a stream in a ferry boat, that strongly reminded us of the immortal river Styx. We reach Mr. Doughty’s elegant residence, and drove through the meandering paths, and cull pretty flowers, and luscious peaches, and enjoy a rural dinner, and are escorted by Mrs. Doughty into the presence of her daughter, who extends her skeleton fingers, and archly lays them in ours, whose icy coldness thrills the fibres of our bowels. She strives to smile, and casts tender glances, and looks down into our soul, for a deliverer. Our eyes reflect the fondest hope, and as she beheld this cheerful word, on the surface of our vision, she sweetly smiles, and presses our palm with tenderness and love. And then she breathes patient words of her afflictions, and touching soliloquies, and sings plaintive verses, and eclipses the sad Ophelia, when moaning for Hamlet, or scattering withered flowers, or on the rosy margin of the glassy brook, where she meets a watery grave. In her lucid intervals, we describe her symptoms and emotions with such minuteness, that we quickly win her confidence, and she is ready to show us her piles and half a dozen other diseases, including worms, and she directs her mother to remove the bed clothes, and let us behold her scabs and frightful probes and lacerations, and inhuman mutilations, by the leading physicians of Europe and America. But we very emphatically direct Mrs. Doughty to replace the sheets, and quilts, and blankets, as we were not a physician, and had no license, and as the authorities of New Jersey (which were rather severe when they caught a foreign barbarian in their dominions) might cage us, if they learned that we were examining female patients without a Jersey permit. But we assured both mother and daughter, that the gentleman below, in company with Alderman Briggs, was the very physician who drove eleven worms from our stomach, and that he could critically examine her diseases, as he was a licensed physician. So, although the invalid abjured her own lovely children, and her dear kindred, and doctors, and all save her father and mother, yet she had such confidence in us, that she permitted our physician to enter her chamber, where he critically examined her person, and immediately assured her that he could not only save, but cure her in six weeks. She spooned at this thrilling intelligence, and did not recover her consciousness for two hours, when ourself, and the Doctor, and Alderman Briggs, returned to New York. Two months afterwards, we called on the Doctor, who informed us that he had just returned from a very large party in Lafayette Place, where he had passed the evening very pleasantly with Mr. and Mrs. Doughty and their lovely daughter, who was entirely restored to health, and who played the great piano music of Thalberg and Lizt for him, and sang nearly equal to Alboni, and that he had the pleasure of a waltz in her graceful and bewitching embraces, who darted through the parlor in a dance, like an eagle through the air, and that the father, and mother, and daughter, warmly inquired for Mr. Branch, whom they regarded as the saviour of their earthly happiness. And thus closes the lamentations and humanities of a ghastly Grahamite, whose narrative on Worms restored a marble statue to vitality, and her parents, and children, and kindred and friends, to the divinest hilarity and joy. And for miles around the residence of the Doughtys, invalids have been rescued from early graves by this supernatural physician, who recently was compelled to conceal himself from the regiments of skeletons who applied for his magic skill and medicines, which is the only reason why we do not disclose his mighty name, lest his patients waste him to the mournful realms of Greenwood, where his slender frame will soon repose forever.
A Melancholy Postscript!—We called last evening to read these lamentations to the Doctor of Mrs. Doughty’s daughter, and we learned that he was reposing in the dark and silent caverns of the globe. O, the rats and mice and pigmies and shadows and phantoms of life’s funny and tearful and mysterious fandango. We open our eyes in the sweet twilight of the morning, and behold the gorgeous panorama of the Universe, and form the warmest attachments, and go to our rest at sunset, never to awake! Peace to the soul and ashes of Dr. David Perry, who is the lamented Physician of our narrative, who was the student of Dr. Cheesman, and preserved the life of ourself and brother and other kindred and friends.