OLD HOMESTEAD 



The long, cool piazza, with morning-glories or trumpet-vines, 

 was a delightful spot for a summer day or an evening rest, and 

 when stretched out thereon with a blanket and a book, one could 

 take solid comfort. When old enough or good enough to be 

 excused from going to church, that was my favorite Sunday sum- 

 mer resort. The opportunities for lounging or rest were limited 

 by the exigencies of work, and if not the more important duties, 

 there always was some minor task which must be done, so that 

 week-day idleness was unknown. 



Although the country and location was a healthful one, we 

 had our share of sickness. The family was large and all had in 

 due time most of the common ailments, like scarlet fever, 

 measles, chicken-pox, whooping cough and mumps. Old Dr. 

 Webb, who lived at Adams, was the family physician. He 

 generally traveled on horseback on an old sorrel horse, or in his 

 old-fashioned, thoroughbrace sulky, and carried a big pair of 

 black saddle-bags filled with bottles of all the most bitter, nasty 

 medicines then known. He was an allopath, who gave doses for 

 a horse, was always joking, and invariably accused his patients 

 of playing sick. 



When he drove up and threw down the lines or handed over 

 the bridle, his greeting was, ''John, put old Tom in the barn 

 and give him a bushel of oats; " and, going in by the kitchen 

 door, he would call out to mother, or whoever was there, " I am 

 starved to death. Got any nutcakes, pie and cheese? " After 

 eating his lunch he would see the patient, not before, unless in 

 some remarkable emergency. He was a genial old man, who 

 blistered, bled and physicked after the old style, and I often 

 wondered how so many of us got by him and lived to grow up. 



There was always a large stock of medicinal roots and herbs 

 in the house, with which ordinary ailments were treated, and 



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