_By Josiah Allen, Esq._
I've been bed-sick and very bad,
And pains and chills and cramps I've had;
And at Tirzah's Samantha come suddenly down
With pleuresy pains from heel to crown,
She couldn't git home with her plaguey crick--
So they never let her know I wuz sick.
But the neighbors turned out good and true
And stood by me to help me through,
They come alone, and they come in pairs,
They come with mules, and they come with mares;
And I felt the goodness that in 'em lay
And treated 'em well both night and day,
Till they brung in them petickulars.
They come from fur, and they come from near,
With new wild remedies strange and queer--
My mouth wuz a open and burnin' road
Down which the streams of their medicines flowed;
Streams of worm-wood and oil of tar,
And onions, and warnuts, and goose, and bar;
But my mean wuz a christian's all the while--
I sithed and swallered and tried to smile--
Till they brung in them petickulars.
They blistered my back, and they blistered my breast;
They iled my nose, and they iled my chest,
They gin me sweats of various sorts,
Hemlock and whiskey and corn and oats--
I drinked their gruel weaker'n a cat,
I drinked their whey, didn't wink at that;
I stood their faith cures, and their mind,
I took 'em all and acted resigned--
Till they brung in them petickulars.
But they tried their cures to the very last,
And I grew no better very fast;
And I spoze they thought it would brighten my gloom,
To bring some petickulars into my room.
So they drove 'em in and they talked of flies--
And of chicken's teeth, and muskeeter's eyes,
And they talked of pins, and stalks of hay,
And lettice seed, and there I lay--
A victim of small petickulars.
And one recounted a lengthy tale
About the best way to drive a nail,
And one old woman talked a hour
On a pinch of salt and a spunful of flour;
And Jane she boasted two hours the deed
She did when she pizened a pusley weed,
And there I'd sweat, and there I'd groan,
And pull my gray locks onbeknown--
A victim to small petickulars.
And a female sot with anxious frown
Disputin' herself right up and down--
As to whether the hour wuz one or two,
When their old white mare lost off its shoe--
Sometimes 'twas two, and then 'twas one,
And so through the hours that mare wuz run,
And it trompled my brain till I cried, "Whoa!
Do shue the old mair and let her go!"
But under its heels I had to lay,
And sweat, and rithe, and cuss the day--
They driv in them petickulars.
And they wondered if Jane had cloth enough
For her calico apron with bib and ruff,
And they mentally rent their robes and tore,
For fear that sunthin' wuz wrong with the gore,
Till I wished that gore wuz over it rolled,
And on Martha's boots that had been new soled,
And they almost mistrusted wuz too thin,
By pretty nigh the wedth of a pin.
And I vowed I could put their souls all in,
And rattle 'em round in the head of a pin.
And there I groaned, and turned, and lay,
And sweat and sithed from day to day,
A victim to small petickulars.
Till one day I riz and cried with might,
"Bring on a earthquake into my sight,
Fetch me a cyclone good and strong,
A hurrycain, pestilence, bring 'em along,
Let me see 'em before I am dead;
Let 'em roar and romp around my bed,
But ketch 'em, kill 'em, drive 'em away,
This very minute of this very day
Every one of your dum petickulars.
"Let me be killed out square and rough,
By a good hard kick from a elephant's huff,
Or let a volcano rise and bust
This mortal frame, if bust it must.
But I swan to man that I won't die
By a kick from the off leg of a fly;
And agin I swan, that I won't give in
And go to my grave on the pint of a pin,
Killed by your dum petickulars."
My eyes wuz wild, my goery meen
Skairt 'em almost to death, I ween
The females all fled out of my sight,
The two old women mad with fright,
Jostled each other and fell over chairs;
And all on 'em said "I wuz crazier'n bears."
But I settled back on my peaceful bed
And most mistrusted I wuz dead
And had got through the gate to Beuler land,
And I smiled some smiles, serene and bland,
For I never had felt such peace before,
As when I drove 'em out of the door,
Every one of them dum petickulars.