26 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
include tinctures or fluid extracts of 
sweet fern, snakeroot, pasque flower, 
aconite, spice bush, hura, poison su- 
mach, pipsissewa, yellow jassamine, 
belladonna and bryony. Other reme- 
dies on the list are strong coffee, mor- 
phine. quinine, Fowler’s solution, sweet 
spirit of nitre, tincture of iron, sulphur, 
calomel and Epsom salts. Mr. Mc- 
Atee lists seventy tinctures, infusions 
or poultices contributed by the plant 
kingdom ; ten acids, forty-four salts 
of various elements and eleven emol- 
lients. To read the roll is to think that 
poison ivy victims have sampled every- 
thing on the drug store shelf. 
Some witnesses declare that the poi- 
son can best be cured with poison from 
the sting of the honey bee. Others 
advise sepia, a preparation from the ink 
of cuttlefish, or the flesh and juices of 
the great spider crab. It is on record 
that before the Civil War a young slave 
in Virginia was so badly poisoned that 
he sold for only $300; his new owner 
cured him with five cents worth of 
copper sulphate. 
A score of bathing processes have 
been suggested. One traveller reported 
that he was cured by a plunge into the 
hot lake at Mammoth Hot Springs, 
Yellowstone Park. A man declared 
that the only reliable salve was ob- 
tained by burning old rags on a rusty 
hatchet and collecting the “dew,” this 
to be applied to the affected skin. A 
common remedy, and one which is 
nearly always to be had quickly, is a 
hard brushing of the poisoned part with 
yellow soap and hot water. A Brook- 
lyn doctor wrote to Mr. McAtee that 
he had tried more than a hundred reme- 
dies “from let it alone to sour butter- 
milk.” And he added, “both are ex- 
cellent.” 
It is an unreliable poison. The so- 
called immunity from it is not always 
to be trusted. Mr. McAtee reports the 
case of a man who used to eat the stems 
and chew the leaves with impunity, but 
he was badly poisoned when a vine fell 
on his face. A young lady who wished 
to commit suicide ate an apron full of 
poison ivy leaves and they had not the 
slightest effect upon her. 
Such a variety of testimony leads the 
reader to think that ivy poison is, as 
General Hancock said of the tariff, a 
local issue. — The Sun and New York 
Herald. 
A Field Mouse. 
BY GRACE SWOBODA, GRADE 5 , WEST MAIN STREET 
SCHOOL, MERIDEN, CONNECTICUT. 
One afternoon when I was sliding 
down a hill near the cannon in the park 
I saw a field mouse under a boy’s sled. 
I said, “Look what is under your sled.” 
He looked and tried to catch him, but 
he ran to his nest in the Christmas tree. 
His nest was made of hay and leaves. 
He was brown with a little black on his 
back. About one hour afterward I 
went up there again. He had dug a 
hole about one foot long in the snow. 
He was looking for something to eat. 
J didn’t have any crumbs with me then 
so I couldn’t give him anything to 
eat. The next day I went up there 
again with some crackers. What do 
you think? He was gone! I looked 
in his nest and he wasn’t there, so I 
looked in some bushes near his nest, 
but he wasn’t there either, so I think 
that he must have died of hunger the 
night before ! 
Amid a Bosky Dell. 
BY CHARLES NEVERS HOLMES, NEWTON, MASS. 
There’s a dear little dell 
Near a drear lonely fell, 
Where a silvery rill 
Trickles down from a hill, 
And the pines seem as high 
As the clouds in the sky. 
’Tis a cool, cheerful glade, 
Somewhat sombre with shade. 
Where the singing of bird 
In the stillness is heard, 
And a lingering breeze 
Softly sighs through the trees. 
It’s a wilderness glen 
Far from riotous men, 
Where at times flits the bee 
To a sweet clovered lea, 
And a stray butterfly 
Flutters leisurely by. 
Oh, that dear little dale, 
O that cool, cheerful vale, 
Where a silvery rill 
Trickles down from a hill, 
And the pines seem as high 
As the clouds in the sky! 
The Sacrificial Fields. 
How appealing are the flowering fields. 
Before their sacrifice ! 
’Tis sad to think, in lands so free. 
Their beauty hath a price ! 
But though the graceful heads lie low, 
That just now were so fair. 
Their breath ascends as incense sweet, 
On the altar of the air. 
— Emma Peirce. 
