University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
Another miraculous cure, but the credit of which Chowder Chow
is willing should rest with Captain Brown entirely.

As these resolutions were forming in my mind,
we perceived of a sudden, in a cotton-field, which
we were riding by, a group of men, all of them
negroes, except one, who seemed an overseer, surrounding
a fellow labourer, who had fallen down in
a fit, as it afterwards appeared; though, with all my
Magian knowledge, I had not the least notion what
was the matter, until my comrade d—d his eyes,
and swore there “was meat for our market,” meaning
that there was a case proper for our medicines.
With that, he rode into the field, bidding me follow
him, and coming up to the group, demanded of the
overseer what was the matter.

“Oh,” said the overseer, with a drawling voice,
“it's nothing—it's only a gone nigger;—fell down
smack with the happyplexy.”

“Did he?” quoth Captain Brown, with an oath;
“then here's just the lad, the great East Injun
Doctor, that can cure him.”

And with that, he descended from his horse, and
turned the negro, who lay terribly snorting on his
face, over upon his back.

“Well!” quoth the overseer, turning from the
officious stranger to me, whom he regarded with a

languid, yawning curiosity; while the negroes, forgetting
their comrade, grinned a stupid amazement
in my face—“Well, I did hear some 'un say something
of the East Injun Doctor: but, I reckon,” he
added, looking round again to Brown, “he can do
nothing for the boy; because as how, he is done for,
and I don't allow any physic can touch the happyplexy.”

“Nor I neither,” said Brown, “except the Magi
physic; which is a thing, my hearty, whereof you
knows no more than a cat of the forte-piano. But
you shall see, shiver my timbers, what Chowder
Chow can do; and if he don't cure him, why, I'll eat
him, that's all. You shall see Chowder Chow look
through his black carcass in no time.”

With that, he turned to me, saying, “How now,
Chowder Chow—polly wolly smash!” which he,
as was his wont, interpreted for the overseer's benefit
to mean, “What is to be done with the man!”

I was amazed, nay, confounded, at the audacity of
Brown in offering my services in a case so desperate;
for to me the poor negro seemed at the very last
gasp, in articulo mortis, as the doctors say; and it
was with a faltering voice, and rather from the associations
of habit than any operation of the will, that
I muttered out the customary “Holly golly wow.”
My amazement was increased by the interpretation
Brown immediately gave this phrase, which had
never before meant any thing but Mermaids' Eggs
or the Golden Sand of the Ganges; but which, now,
he declared, signified nothing less than that the overseer
should use the whip he had in his hand, and
apply it to the back of the dying negro.

“Lash a feller that's dying!” ejaculated the overseer,
his dull eyes opening with astonishment, perhaps

with humane indignation: “no, stranger, I don't
do no such thing as that, no how.”

“You wont?” quoth Brown, snatching the whip,
from his hand: “I'll be hang'd if I don't, then; for,
d'ye see, when Chowder Chow says whip, he means
whip, and no mistake about it.”

With that, he fetched the poor creature a terrible
thwack over the shins, which happened to be bare,
and with an effect the most astonishing in the world.
The legs, that seemed stiffening in death, were jerked
upwards with convulsive vivacity; the snort of apoplexy
was changed to a yell of pain; and up jumped
the dying negro, dancing about to avoid the slashes
Brown still aimed at his shins, and lustily roaring,
“Lorra gor, Massy! all cure now, Massy! all cure!”
And I heard him add, sotto voce, when the operation
was over, “dis here niggur nebber play' possum no
more!”

“Well!” ejaculated the overseer, surveying first
the resuscitated negro, (who the moment Brown
ceased to castigate him, caught up a hoe, and began
to annihilate weeds and blue grass with astonishing
zeal and industry,) then Brown, the performer of the
cure, and, lastly, him, the sagacious Chowder Chow,
who had directed it—“Well now! I'm hanged if I
ever did hear of trouncing a feller out of the happyplexy!
I say, stranger,” he added, addressing Brown,
“do you cure any other diseases that way?”

“The way,” quoth Brown, “depends upon Chowder
Chow, the Magi doctor, who always cures every
ailing exactly the right way; and never misses,
because how, shipmate, a miss isn't in him.”

“It an't?” said the overseer, giving me another
admiring stare; “well then, all I have to say is, if
that's the sort of short work he makes upon a sick
man, he has just come to the right place, here upon

this plantation, to get his hands full of business; because
we've a heap of hands here among us, and this
here Roanoke air always keeps us a full hospital.”

With that he invited us to follow him to the mansion
of his employer, who lived in seclusion upon his
estate, which was a very great and valuable, but not
very healthy one, and would, doubtless, be very
happy to engage our services, as well as reward them
handsomely. To this proposal Brown immediately
consented, and we rode to the house—much, however,
against my secret will; for I feared lest the
owner of the estate should prove a man of education,
intelligent enough to penetrate our shallow devices,
to laugh at, and perhaps to punish the imposition.