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THE TALE OF A TOOTH. 
NTRODUCTION.—It is my tooth, 
and I am largely responsible for its 
condition. It has had a long and 
varied experience, and its story may be 
said to carry both moral and evil. The 
dentist might describe it as an upper 
loft hand canine. To me it is an eye 
tooth gone to the dogs. Why not. let 
such teeth rest in oblivion? I think it 
has a message to humanity—along with 
the poet or the statesman. There should 
be a motive for every story. The other 
day I saw a young man cracking wal- 
nuts with his teeth and betting that he 
could crack hickories in the same way. 
Another young fellow with decay start¬ 
ing in his teeth spent the money which 
should have employed a dentist in paying 
for some midnight suppers. I met a 
woman of 25 who has lost all her teeth 
and must now chew on through life with 
plates. Perhaps the tale of this tooth 
may startle some careless young per¬ 
son into the warfare against pyorrhea 
and other allies against the gums and 
teeth. The old one-legged veteran by the 
tire never could convince us children that 
the pen is mightier than the sword, but 
perhaps my dilapidated canine may in¬ 
dicate the power of the toothbrush! 
Youth. —This eye tooth grew along 
with the rest of the set. It is said that 
in some families nearly all members show 
poor teeth—due to naturally “imperfect 
enamel” and poor food and water. 
Brown bread or cornmeal bread and 
other foods low in lime with soft water 
and potatoes made Tip a good share of 
our diet as children. I think that gave 
our teeth a poor start, and yet I have 
seen the negroes at the South—living 
mostly on corn bread and pork—with 
perfect, dazzling white teeth. At any 
rate my children now have food which 
I know is rich in lime and phosphorus. 
By the time my second teeth came on 
some of them seemed ready for pulling. 
The local dentist was known as “Snake 
’em-out Thomas.” He had a strong arm 
and lived up to his reputation. He got 
out a couple of mine and cast his eye 
on this “canine,” but finally let it go. 
At that time, as I remember it, the 
great majority of people of 40 or over 
had lost their teeth. The dentists did not 
try to save teeth as they do now. They 
pulled them out and comforted you with 
the information that Geo. Washington 
“wore” a set of teeth carved out of a 
solid block of ivory! It in’ *- have been 
very consoling. People .ed to accept 
the loss of their teeth .vith philosophy. 
It was a regular part of nature—like 
having the hair turn color. Most people 
seemed to be rather proud of their 
plates! 
Beginning Early. —My “upper ca¬ 
nine” began to growl before I got my 
growth. My children are taught to con¬ 
sider their toothbrush as necessary as 
knife and fork. Both the old people who 
brought me up had lost their teeth years 
before, and accepted the situation. When 
a man accepts the situation he is not a 
first-class teacher. I_ was taught that 
children should eat the hard crusts of 
brown bread—the chewing of these tough 
morsels would clean the teeth! It is 
much the same proposition as feeding 
ear corn to horses as a remedy for lam- 
pas or a growth on the teeth. I nearly 
broke my young teeth on that hard 
crust, and there was not lime enough in 
it to make solid bone. Then I went to 
Boston as errand boy in a big store, and 
the teeth lacked even this brown bread 
crust care. One day I stopped to listen 
to a faker on a street corner. He had 
some wonderful powder for cleaning the 
teeth. “Now,” he said, “here’s a yonng 
lad!” and before I knew it he had me 
up on a box with my mouth open clean¬ 
ing my teeth with his powder. He did 
make them shine, but I am satisfied that 
his stuff started my canine along the 
way to the bark which largely destroyed 
its bite. No more playing the part of 
“object lesson” for me. My tooth be¬ 
gan to fail. There was a little pain at 
drinking ice water or hot coffee, and 
small black holes appeared. I would 
have my children’s teeth looked over 
twice a year, but in those days somehow 
we just let them go. Finally I decided 
to go to Colorado to try my fortune at 
cattle herding. An old friend out there 
wrote this practical message—“Get your 
teeth fixed before you start—you will 
have to chew salt pork and leather cakes 
here.” 
Financing It.—S o I went to a den¬ 
tist. He looked in my mouth and shook 
liis head. “You ought to have come two 
years ago,” he said. However, he pulled 
out a couple and began on the others. 
That was in the good old days when 
the dentist worked a pedal with his foot 
to drill out the tooth. Two old soldiers 
sat about and watched the work telling 
how it was done in the army. The old 
dentist did a good job, and packed a 
chunk of gold into my canine. Unhappi¬ 
ly I made no bargain before we started, 
and I had no idea what the job would 
cost. When we were done I thought it 
might perhaps be $15. You can imagine 
my feelings when the old dentist handed 
me a bill for $C>0. I am told now that 
expert New York dentists would charge 
$200 for the job, but that would not re¬ 
lieve a moneyless young man. Well, I 
couldn’t pay it; I told the old dentist so. 
lie sat down in bis chair and looked at 
me for about five minutes. I expected he 
would call in a policeman and set my 
teeth on edge. Instead of that he said 
slowly and kindly : 
“I am going to trust you. I think you 
are honest, and I don’t think you tried 
to beat me. You can’t give back my 
work as you could a suit of clothes. You 
are going 2,000 miles away, and probably 
will never come back, but I think you 
will pay that money and I shall trust 
you to do it. Good bye and good luck 
to you!” 
That was in March. By August I had 
saved $60 out of my wages. I rode into 
the little Colorado town with that money 
in my pocket. The bank was in the 
same block with a clothing store. I 
needed clothes and many other things, 
and I confess that I went past the bank 
and got inside the store. It was easy to 
argue that this old dentist never could 
get at me far out on the plains. He 
was probably rich anyway, and did not 
need this money, while I did. Let him 
go! A minister to whom I once told 
this story said that “the old devil” was 
right there on the sidewalk telling me 
this. I did not see him, but I did feel 
like him. 
Then came the other side. This' man 
trusted you, and put it up to you square¬ 
ly as a matter of honor and character. 
Have you anything of either quality? If 
so you have got to show it now or quit 
forever. All this was fought out over 
my tooth. Finally I went into the bank, 
bought a draft and paid the $60 to the 
old dentist. You see this old tooth of 
mine has had a varied experience and 
considerable influence. I think that de¬ 
cision to pay the bill was the best finan¬ 
cial move I ever made. It was the 
foundation of saving and meeting obliga¬ 
tions so as to obtain credit. Do you 
wonder that I stay by my old friend the 
canine tooth? 
Tinkering. —The old dentist saved 
that tooth, and his gold held in place, 
and I enjoyed the “salt pork and leather 
cakes.” But while the old dentist and 
the tooth taught me financial obligations, 
somehow they could not make me real¬ 
ize the fact that teeth need daily care. 
Tartar began to accumulate and pyor¬ 
rhea appeared. This wasting away of 
the gums comes on as slowly as “near 
sight”, or deafness. The young and vig¬ 
orous'think nothing of it until finally the 
fact is forced upon them that the teeth 
are becoming loose and that a little bare 
streak has appeared above the crown 
which “aches,” with a pain which no 
remedy can subdue. Some of my teeth 
went that way, and when they start it is 
hard to hold them. While at college I 
worked one Winter in a lumber camp 
far from town. One big fellow in the 
midst of a bad storm, came down—or 
up as you please—with a jumping tooth¬ 
ache. There was no remedy and this 
man had no use for a dentist except to 
pull teeth whenever they ached. There 
was an old fellow near by who “knocked 
out teeth,” and in his desperation the 
sufferer went to him. I did not have the 
nerve to witness the operation! but the re¬ 
port was that three men held'the “patient” 
while the operator put a small, sharp, 
cold chisel at the root of the upper 
tooth and tapped it with his hammer. 
They said the tooth dropped quickly out 
at a light blow! My own canine tooth 
began to ache in sympathy, but I thought 
so much of my old friend that I declined 
this sort of surgery and walked through 
the storm to town. There a dentist filed 
off the upper part of the tooth below the 
gum and put in cement. He meant well, 
but lie hurt so with his few rude tools 
that he did not do a thorough job. 
A Remembrance. —When I finished 
at college I started for the South. Wait¬ 
ing for a train in a little junction town 
T saw the name of a good old friend on 
a dental office. This man had studied 
dentistry and “hung out his shingle” in 
this little place. The shingle was ac- 
cummulating more moss than money, but 
like all the rest, of us in those days, my 
friend was as hopeful as a dream. He 
had more time than patients, so he got 
me into his chair, liis proposition was 
that he could fix up a couple of my teeth 
and I could wear them as I would a 
ring or a jewel for remembrance. So 
while we talked over old days this man 
dug out the gold of the old dentist and 
the cement of the new one. bored a deep¬ 
er hole and patched up my friend anew. 
It was a kindly and original thing to do 
for remembrance, and I went on my way 
with the “upper canine” not only car¬ 
rying a financial lesson but one of senti¬ 
ment and friendship as well. Of course 
I would stay by such an old friend. 
Every one of these men told me that I 
might have saved my teeth had I cared 
for them properly. 
Still Another. —In the South I 
picked up another good friend. Den¬ 
tistry in that section could not be called 
an exact science. This man could not 
get his patients to come to him, so he 
went after them. He rode out over lone¬ 
ly roads through mud or dust, across 
rivers and swamps, with his dental kit 
in the saddle bags. He would stop at 
farmhouses and talk teeth-pulling or fill¬ 
ing as times were good or bad. After 
the cotton was sold and money was 
plenty there would be more filling done. 
It was rough work, but this man did it 
well. My canine began to bark once 
more—this time above the gum. There 
was to be a great baseball match -with 
some neighboring town, and it was one 
of the very rare occasions when my fel¬ 
low citizens built their hopes on me, or 
on my arm. I was pitcher of the town 
club, and although a very poor vessel I 
held the water of hope for the town. 
And a few days before that great match 
my tooth went wrong. The trouble was 
up in the gum. You may know how the 
face puffs up—so painfully that it hurts 
you to think. My eye was nearly closed 
and life had lost its charm. Then my 
friend the dentist came to the rescue. I 
would not let him pull my old friend, for 
it was full of “Records which defy the 
tooth of time.” 
So he picked out my fwend's “remem¬ 
brance” filling, got up into the gum and 
relieved the swelling. Then to be sure 
he ground out a little more of the tooth 
and packed in a larger filling. And at 
the baseball game when I mowed down 
those batters with a curved ball my good 
friend the dentist danced for joy over by 
first base. 
Crumbling. —Three other dentists have 
had a chance at this old tooth since then. 
Most of them have advised pulling it at 
times, but I have hung to it as I would 
to any old friend fallen upon evil days. 
Little by little it crumbled. The gum 
receded and a little crown was put on it 
—not, however, for the good it had done. 
Then it played the part of anchor with a 
wire to hold two other teeth firmly. It 
is wonderful how the modern dentist will 
fight for a tooth—and hold it in the jaw. 
There came a time after all this patch¬ 
ing when my friend carried about as 
much cement as a fence post. There was 
no longer a cavity, but a little strip of 
enamel and a hole. “We will hang to 
it,” said the dentist; “it helps!” So it 
did. 
A Shock. —One night the blow fell. 
When I was a boy I knew a man with 
a very long nose who got up in the night. 
The room was pitch dark, and this man 
groped around for a light. The door 
stood open. The man with arms out¬ 
stretched to feel his way walked into the 
edge of the open door. One hand passed 
on either side and he walked on until 
he bumped that long nose plump into 
the door. It was a standing joke that 
his nose was longer than his arms. I 
laughed with the rest and perhaps fate 
came back and marched me into retribu¬ 
tion. At any rate I got up one dark 
night groping in that same way and 
passed the open door with my hands 
spread out. The edge of that door might 
easily have hit me on any one of 50 other 
places, but it landed fairly and squarely 
right on the point of my old friend the 
canine, and broke it off at the gum. It 
seemed to me for about five minutes that 
the end of the world had come. My old 
friend through trouble and joy would 
never bite again. 
Grafting. —That would have been 
true 50 years ago, but it is not true 
now. “The root is strong.” said the den¬ 
tist, “we will graft in a new one !” So 
he proceeded to grind down the top of 
that root. The old dentist who started 
that tooth did his grinding by working 
a little machine with his foot. His leg 
soon gave out. The modern de tist put 
a tiny grindstone at the end of a wire, 
touched a button and the grinding was 
done by electric power. I never realized 
how hard a tooth really is until the 
fraction of an inch was ground off that 
root. It is not my job to tell how it 
was done, but it seemed to me that after 
grinding down the root the dentist bored 
a small hole into it and then put in a 
porcelain tooth with a stout pin at the 
top. After being nicely adjusted this 
was firmly cemented in so that now my 
old canine friend is stronger and more 
serviceable than at any time during the 
past five years! It is like the old tree 
at Hope Farm which we cut. off and top- 
worked. It is now far more vigorous 
and profitable than before. And so it 
happens that after over half a century 
of service, and after being given up by 
half a dozen experts, my old friend is 
still at work—a rooted witness to the 
wonders of modern dentistry. Yet there 
was no good reason why it should be a 
wonder, because if it could have received 
good care in its youth it might have 
grown on sound and useful without all 
this painful and varied experience. I 
wish it were possible to make our young 
people realize the folly or crime of dis¬ 
regarding their teeth. Very few of them 
thus neglected will stay by as my old 
friend has done. H. w. C. 
October ,31, 
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