"Boohoo as much as you like," cried the Yankee in a shrill tone, that was heard above all the howlings of the unlucky Sambo. "You'll sing to another tune when you see and understand and feel what a Conne'ticut man can do. You say Boe, Boe! like a poor benighted crittur as you are, but what do you say to that?" cried the pedlar in a triumphant voice, as he held close to the negro's nose a piece of linen rag on which he had smeared a green greasy substance bearing a strong resemblance to paste-blacking in a state of decomposition. Then, taking up the box which contained this precious compound, he put it in close proximity to the obtuse snout of the blackamoor, who made a grimace as if his olfactories were but moderately regaled by the odour emanating from the miraculous ointment.
"What d'ye think of that, Sambo? Is that the stuff or not? Will that do, think ye? Well, you shall soon see. Gentlemen!" he continued, with all the gravity of a legitimate M.D. "Gentlemen! the arms and legs of this poor Sambo must be stretched as much as possible, in order that the sarve may take its full effect. Will you be good enough to assist me?"
Upon the word, the backwoodsmen caught hold of the negro's limbs, and began pulling and tugging at them till the poor devil roared as if they had been impaling him.
"Boohoo away!" cried the Yankee. "It's all for your good. If your shoulder is put out, the stretchin' will put it in ag'in."
The negro continued his lamentations, as well he might, when every one of his joints was cracking under the force applied.
"All no use your callin' out!" screamed the pedlar, as he stuck the salved rag upon the ebony hide of the patient. "Better hold yer tongue. Ain't you lucky to have met with me at a time when all the doctors in the world—the Browns, and Hossacks, and Sillimans—could not have done you a cent's worth of good? All their drugs would have had no more effect than a ladleful of pea-soup. You ought to be rejoicin' in yer luck, instead of screamin' like a wounded catamount. Keep still, will you? There, that'll do. Many thanks, gentlemen; I thank you in the name of this senseless crittur. That's enough. No cause for complaint, man!" continued he, as he stuck a second plaster on the negro's foot. "All safe enough when Jared Bundle is there with his Palmyra sarve. You be the first as was ever know'd to scream after havin' one smell of that precious 'intment. And I tell you what it is, my man, if both your black legs had been broken clean off, and were swimmin' down the Mississippi half rotten—ay, or if they had just come out of the jaws of an alligator, and you were to stick 'em on, and plaster them up with this 'intment, you may take my word, Jared Bundle's word, that they'd grow to your body again—the flesh would become your flesh, and the bone your bone, as sure as I am now here." And he looked round at his auditors with a world of confidence and veracity depicted upon his countenance.
"There was Aby Sparks to Penobscot—you know, ladies and gentlemen, Aby Sparks, the son of Enoch Sparks, who married Peggy Heath. Good family the Sparkses—very good family, as you know, ladies and gentlemen. Respectable people in a respectable way of business, the general line—drugs and cutlery, and hats patent waterproof, bird-seed and jewellery, tea and coffee pots, and shoes of the newest fashion. Ladies and gentlemen, do you want a good tea or coffee pot? Partiklar jam, they are, I reckon. Well, Aby Sparks said to me, 'Jared Bundle,' says he, 'leave me a dozen boxes or phials, whichever you like, of your Palmyra sarve. Wonderful stuff that!' says he. 'What!' says I, 'leave you some of my Palmyra sarve! You're jist right to say it ain't common apothecaries' stuff; that it certainly ain't. But what would the ladies and gentlemen on the lower Mississippi say, if I left any of it here? It's all meant for them,' says I; 'they're my best customers.'"
"Soft sawder! Jared Bundle," grunted a Kentuckian.
"Cart grease and cobbler's wax," said a man of Illinois.
"He's from the north," laughed a third, "where there's more wooden clocks than cows and calves."