ers of water ready to
save her. And up runs the boy with the flaxseed.

I unwrapped the covers from Mrs. Sampson's head. She opened her eyes
and says:

"Is that you, Mr. Pratt?"

"S-s-sh," says I. "Don't talk till you've had the remedy."

I runs my arm around her neck and raises her head, gentle, and breaks
the bag of flaxseed with the other hand; and as easy as I could I
bends over and slips three or four of the seeds in the outer corner of
her eye.

Up gallops the village doc by this time, and snorts around, and grabs
at Mrs. Sampson's pulse, and wants to know what I mean by any such
sandblasted nonsense.

"Well, old Jalap and Jerusalem oakseed," says I, "I'm no regular
practitioner, but I'll show you my authority, anyway."

They fetched my coat, and I gets out the Handbook.

"Look on page 117," says I, "at the remedy for suffocation by smoke or
gas. Flaxseed in the outer corner of the eye, it says. I don't know
whether it works as a smoke consumer or whether it hikes the compound
gastro-hippopotamus nerve into action, but Herkimer says it, and he
was called to the case first. If you want to make it a consultation,
there's no objection."

Old doc takes the book and looks at it by means of his specs and a
fireman's lantern.

"Well, Mr. Pratt," says he, "you evidently got on the wrong line in
reading your diagnosis. The recipe for suffocation says: 'Get the
patient into fresh air as quickly as possible, and place in a
reclining position.' The flaxseed remedy is for 'Dust and Cinders in
the Eye,' on the line above. But, after all--"

"See here," interrupts Mrs. Sampson, "I reckon I've got something to
say in this consultation. That flaxseed done me more good than
anything I ever tried." And then she raises up her head and lays it
back on my arm again, and says: "Put some in the other eye, Sandy
dear."

And so if you was to stop off at Rosa to-morrow, or any other day,
you'd see a fine new yellow house with Mrs. Pratt, that was Mrs.
Sampson, embellishing and adorning it. And if you was to step inside
you'd see on the marble-top centre table in the parlour "Herkimer's
Handbook of Indispensable Information," all rebound in red morocco,
and ready to be consulted on any subject pertaining to human happiness
and wisdom.

V

THE PIMIENTA PANCAKES

While we were rounding up a bunch of the Triangle-O cattle in the Frio
bottoms a projecting branch of a dead mesquite caught my wooden
stirrup and gave my a