or Boneset” [Eupatorium perfoliatum], “that’s the thing to sweat ye.  Wanst Oi sane a feller jest dyin’ o’ dry hoide, wuz all hoidebound, an’ the docthers throid an’ throid an’ couldn’t help wan bit, till I guv his mother some Boneset leaves to make tay, an’ he sweat buckets before he’d more’n smelt av it, an’ the docthers thought they done it theirsilves!” and she cackled gleefully.

“Thayer’s Goldthread fur cankermouth, an’ Pipsissewa that cures fayver an’ rheumatiz, too.  It always grows where folks gits them disayses.  Luk at the flower just blotched red an’ white loike fayver blotches—­an’ Spearmint, that saves ye if ya pizen yerself with Spaszum-root, an’ shure it grows right next it in the woods!

“Thayer’s Wormseed fur wurrums—­see the ’ittle wurrum on the leaves” [Chenopodium] “an’ that thayer is Pleurisy root, an’ thayer! well, thayer’s the foinest hairb that iver God made to grow—­that’s Cure all.  Some things cures wan thing and some cures another, but when ye don’t know just what to take, ye make tay o’ that root an’ ye can’t go wrong.  It was an Injun larned me that.  The poor miserable baste of a haythen hed some larnin’, an’ the minit he showed me I knowed it was so, fur ivery lafe wuz three in wan an’ wan in three, an’ had the sign o’ the blessed crass in the middle as plain as that biler settin’ on the stove.”

Thus she chattered away, smoking her short pipe, expectorating on the top of the hot stove, but with true feminine delicacy she was careful each time to wipe her mouth on the back of her skinny arm.

“An’ that’s what’s called Catnip; sure Oi moind well the day Oi furst larned about that.  It warn’t a Injun nor a docther nor a man at all, at all, that larned me that.  It was that ould black Cat, an’ may the saints stand bechuxt me an’ his grane eyes!  Bejabers, sometimes he scares me wid his knowin’ ways, but I hev nothin’ agin him except that he kills the wee burruds.  He koind o’ measled all wan winter an’ lay around the stove.  Whiniver the dooer was open he’d go an’ luk out an’ then come back an’ meow an’ wheen an’ lay down—­an’ so he kep’ on, gittin’ waker an’ worser, till the snow wuz gone an’ grass come up, an’ still he’d go a-lukin’ toward the ayst, especially nights.  Then thayer come up a plant I had never sane, right thayer, an’ he’d luk at it an’ luk at it loike he wanted it but didn’t dar to.  Thar was some foine trays out thayer in thim days afore the ould baste cut thim down, an’ wan av thim hed a big limb, so—­an’ another so—­an’ when the moon come up full at jest the right time the shaddy made the sign av the crass an’ loighted on me dooer, an’ after it was past it didn’t make no crass.  Well, bejabers, the full moon come up at last an’ she made the sign of the shaddy crass, an’ the ould Cat goes out an’ watches an’ watches loike he wanted to an’ didn’t dar to, till that crass drapped fayer onto the hairbs, an’ Tom he jumped then an’ ate an’ ate, an’ from that day he was a well Cat; an’ that’s how Oi larned Catnip, an’ it set me moind aisy, too, fur no Cat that’s possesst ’ll iver ate inunder the shaddy av the crass.”