CHAPTER VI.

Free life and fishing.

Taking care of crazy men-carrying off A boy-arrested for stealing
my own horse and buggy-fishing in lake Winnipiseogee-an odd
landlord-A woman as big as A hogshead-reducing the hogshead to A
barrel-wonderful verification of A dream-successful medical
practice-A busy winter in new Hampshire-blandishments of captain
Brown-I go to Newark, new Jersey.

The next day I left Harmony and walked to Port Jarvis, on the Erie Railroad, N. Y., arriving late at night, and entirely footsore, sick, and disheartened.  I went to the hotel, and the next morning I found myself seriously sick.  Asking advice, I was directed to the house of a widow, who promised to nurse and take care of me.  I was ill for two weeks, and meantime, my half-sister in Delaware County, to whom I made known my condition, sent me money for my expenses, and when I had sufficiently recovered to travel, I went to this sister’s house in Sidney, and there I remained several days, till I was quite well and strong again.

Casting about for something to do, a friend told me that he knew of an opportunity for a good man at Newbury to take care of a young man, eighteen years of age, who was insane.  I went there and saw his father, and he put him under my charge.  I had the care of him four months, and during the last two months of the time I traveled about with him, and returned him, finally, to his friends in a materially improved condition.  The friends of another insane man in Montgomery, near Newbury, hearing of my success with this young man, sent for me to come and see them.  I went there and found a man who had been insane seven years, but who was quiet and well-behaved, only he was “out of his head.”  I engaged to do what I could for him.  The father of my Newbury patient had paid me well, and with my medical practice and the sale of medicines in traveling about, I had accumulated several hundred dollars, and when I went to Montgomery I had a good horse and buggy which cost me five hundred dollars.  So, when my new patient had been under my care and control two months, I proposed that he should travel about with me in my buggy, and visit various parts of the State in the immediate vicinity.  His friends thought well of the suggestion, and we traveled in this way about four months, stopping a few days here and there, when I practiced where I could, and sold medicines, making some money.  At the end of this time I went back to Montgomery with my patient, as I think, fully restored, and his father, besides, paying the actual expenses of our journey, gave me six hundred dollars.