k it."--"No," said I, "you told me to turn
it down; and I have poured it down--my part of it--at the foot of the
stump. If you have forgotten your direction to turn it down, I appeal to
two competent witnesses."

The joke passed off much better than I expected. For myself, however, I
grew worse rapidly, and was soon sent home. My mother put me into bed,
applied a bottle of hot water to my feet, and gave me hot drinks most
liberally, and among the rest some "hot toddy." Her object was to sweat
away a supposed attack of fever. Had she known it was measles that
assailed me, or had she even suspected it, she would almost as soon have
cut off her right hand as apply the sweating process. She would, on the
contrary, have given me cooling drinks and pure air. She was not wholly
divested of good sense on this point, neither was the prevailing public
opinion.

I suffered much, very much, and was for a part of the time delirious. At
length an eruption began to be visible, and to assume the appearance
which is usual in measles, both to my own relief and that of my parents
and other friends. But the mistaken treatment, or the disease, or both,
gave a shock to my already somewhat delicate constitution, from which I
doubt whether I ever fully recovered. The sequel, however, will appear
more fully in the next chapter.

CHAPTER V.

LEE'S PILLS, AND THE DROPSY.

In consequence either of the disease or its mismanagement, I was left,
on recovering from the measles, with a general dropsy. I might also say
here, that at the recurrence of the same season, for many years
afterwards, I was attacked with a complaint so nearly resembling measles
that some who were strangers to me could hardly be diverted from the
belief that it was the veritable disease itself.

But to the dropsy. This disease, so unusual in young people, especially
those of my sanguine and nervous temperament, alarmed both my parents
and myself, and medical advice was forthwith invoked. Our family
physician was an old man, bred in the full belief of the necessity in
such cases of what are called "alteratives," which, in plain English,
means substances so active as to produce, when applied to the body
either externally or internally, certain sudden changes. Alteratives, in
short, are either irritants or poisons.

Our aged doctor was called in to see me; and after the usual
compliments, and perhaps a passing joke or two,--for both of which he
was quite famous,--h