“Now, this was a very important thing to Joshua.  He was a great favorite with Moses, who intended him, as we all know, to be his successor as leader of the people and of the army.  Joshua was essentially a soldier; he was quiet, brave, and a good disciplinarian; in fact, he had all the qualities needed for the position he expected to fill:  but he was not young, and if he should become subject to frequent attacks of rheumatism, it is not likely that Moses, who had very rigid ideas of his duties to his people, would be willing to place at their head a man who might at any time be incapacitated from taking his proper place on the field of battle.  So Joshua had never mentioned his ailment to his uncle, hoping that he might be relieved of it, and having heard that I was skilled in such matters, now wished my advice.

“I soon found that his ailment was a very ordinary one, which might easily be kept under control, if not cured, and I proceeded at once to apply remedies.  I will just mention that in those days remedies were generally heroic, and I think you will agree with me when I tell you how I treated Joshua.  I first rubbed his aching muscles with fine sand, keeping up a friction until his skin was in a beautiful glow.  Then I brought out from the back part of my cave, where I kept my medicines, a jar containing a liniment which I had made for such purposes.  It was composed of oil, in which had been steeped the bruised fruit or pods of a plant very much resembling the Tabasco pepper-plant.”

“Whoop!” I exclaimed involuntarily.

“Yes,” said Mr. Crowder, “and Joshua ‘whooped’ too.  But it was a grand liniment, especially when applied upon skin already excited by rubbing with sand.  He jumped at first, but he was a soldier, and he bore the application bravely.

“I saw him again the next day, and he assured me with genuine pleasure that every trace of the rheumatism had disappeared.  I gave him some of my liniment, and also showed him some of the little pepper pods, so that he might procure them at any time in the future when he should need them.

“It was more than twenty years after this that I again met Joshua.  He was then an elderly man, but still a vigorous soldier.  He assured me that he had used my remedy whenever he had felt the least twinges of rheumatism, and that the disease had never interfered with the performance of his military duties.

“He was much surprised to see that I looked no older than when he had met me before.  He was greatly impressed by this, and talked a good deal about it.  He told me he considered himself under the greatest obligations to me for what I had done for him, and as he spoke I could see that a hope was growing within him that perhaps I might do something more.  He presently spoke out boldly, and said to me that as my knowledge of medicine had enabled me to keep myself from growing old, perhaps I could do the same thing for him.  Few men had greater need of protecting themselves against the advance of old age.  His work was not done, and years of bodily strength were necessary to enable him to finish it.