"Huh—good for?—excuse me, but you make me laugh," the peddler said, as he held a bottle of the dark fluid up before her; "it's good for so many things that I could hardly get through telling you between now and sundown. It's good for anything that harms the blood, skin, or muscles. It's even good for the stomach, although I don't advise it taken internally, for when it's rubbed on the outside of folks they have perfect digestions; but what it is best for is sprains, lameness, or any skin or blood eruption. Do you know, madam, that you'd never hear of so many cancers and tumors, that are dragging weary folks to early graves hereabouts, if this medicine had been used in time?"
"Cancer?" The widow's voice had fallen, and she looked towards Ann Boyd's house, and then more furtively over her shoulder towards her own, as if to be sure of not being observed. "That's what I've always wondered at, how is anybody to know whether a—a thing is a cancer or not without going to a doctor, and, as you say, even then they may not tell you the truth? Mrs. Twiggs, over the mountain, was never let know she had her cancer till a few months before it carried her off. The family and the doctor never told her the truth. The doctor said it couldn't be cured, and to know would only make the poor thing brood over it and be miserable."
"That's it, now," said the medicine-vender; "but if it had been taken at the start and rubbed vigorously night and morning, it would have melted away under this fluid like dirt under lye-soap and warm water. Madam, a cancer is nothing more nor less than bad circulation at a certain point where blood stands till it becomes foul and putrefies. I can—excuse me if I seem bold, but long experience in handling men and women has learnt me to understand human nature. Most people who are afraid they've got cancers generally show it on their faces, an' I'll bet my hat and walk bareheaded to the nighest store to get another that you are troubled on that line—a little bit, anyway."
Jane made no denial, though her thin face worked as she strove adequately to meet his blunt assertion. "As I said just now"—she swallowed, and avoided his covetous glance—"how is a person really to know?"
"It's a mighty easy matter for me to tell," said the peddler, and he spoke most reassuringly. "Just you let me take a look at the spot, if it's no trouble to you, and I may save you a good many sleepless nights. You are a nervous, broody sort of a woman yourself, and I can see by your face that you've let this matter bother you a lots."
"You think you could tell if you—you looked at it?" Jane asked, tremulously.
"Well, if I didn't it would be the first case I ever diagnosed improperly. Couldn't we go in the house?"
Jane hesitated. "I think I'd rather my folks didn't know—that is, of course, if it is one. My brother-in-law is a great hand to talk, and I'd rather it wasn't noised about. If there's one thing in the world I don't like it's the pity and the curiosity of other folks as to just about how long I'm going to hold out."
"I've seed a lots o' folks like you." The peddler smiled. "But, if you don't mind tellin', where's the thing located?"
"It's on my breast," Jane gulped, undecidedly, and then, the first bridge having been crossed, she unbuttoned her dress at the neck with fumbling fingers and pulled it down. "Maybe you can see as well here as anywhere."