{"id":"01KG8AKB8EVC7KX78A22GM8SXE","cid":"bafkreibe5e2bpjlgbr6bqh6bw7dgds3wjxihgfd2h5r64h3to7on7dveay","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3872,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":3801,"text":"he sat satisfactorily healthy and happy; that the Samaritan Pain\r\nDissuader is the one only balm for that to which each living\r\ncreature--who knows?--may be a draughted victim, present or prospective.\r\nIn short:--Oh, Happiness on my right hand, and oh, Security on my left,\r\ncan ye wisely adore a Providence, and not think it wisdom to\r\nprovide?--Provide!\" (Uplifting the bottle.)\r\n\r\nWhat immediate effect, if any, this appeal might have had, is uncertain.\r\nFor just then the boat touched at a houseless landing, scooped, as by a\r\nland-slide, out of sombre forests; back through which led a road, the\r\nsole one, which, from its narrowness, and its being walled up with story\r\non story of dusk, matted foliage, presented the vista of some cavernous\r\nold gorge in a city, like haunted Cock Lane in London. Issuing from that\r\nroad, and crossing that landing, there stooped his shaggy form in the\r\ndoor-way, and entered the ante-cabin, with a step so burdensome that\r\nshot seemed in his pockets, a kind of invalid Titan in homespun; his\r\nbeard blackly pendant, like the Carolina-moss, and dank with cypress\r\ndew; his countenance tawny and shadowy as an iron-ore country in a\r\nclouded day. In one hand he carried a heavy walking-stick of swamp-oak;\r\nwith the other, led a puny girl, walking in moccasins, not improbably\r\nhis child, but evidently of alien maternity, perhaps Creole, or even\r\nCamanche. Her eye would have been large for a woman, and was inky as the\r\npools of falls among mountain-pines. An Indian blanket, orange-hued, and\r\nfringed with lead tassel-work, appeared that morning to have shielded\r\nthe child from heavy showers. Her limbs were tremulous; she seemed a\r\nlittle Cassandra, in nervousness.\r\n\r\nNo sooner was the pair spied by the herb-doctor, than with a cheerful\r\nair, both arms extended like a host's, he advanced, and taking the\r\nchild's reluctant hand, said, trippingly: \"On your travels, ah, my\r\nlittle May Queen? Glad to see you. What pretty moccasins. Nice to dance\r\nin.\" Then with a half caper sang--\r\n\r\n    \"'Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle;\r\n      The cow jumped over the moon.'\r\n\r\nCome, chirrup, chirrup, my little robin!\"\r\n\r\nWhich playful welcome drew no responsive playfulness from the child, nor\r\nappeared to gladden or conciliate the father; but rather, if anything,\r\nto dash the dead weight of his heavy-hearted expression with a smile\r\nhypochondriacally scornful.\r\n\r\nSobering down now, the herb-doctor addressed the stranger in a manly,\r\nbusiness-like way--a transition which, though it might seem a little\r\nabrupt, did not appear constrained, and, indeed, served to show that his\r\nrecent levity was less the habit of a frivolous nature, than the frolic\r\ncondescension of a kindly heart.\r\n\r\n\"Excuse me,\" said he, \"but, if I err not, I was speaking to you the\r\nother day;--on a Kentucky boat, wasn't it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never to me,\" was the reply; the voice deep and lonesome enough to have\r\ncome from the bottom of an abandoned coal-shaft.\r\n\r\n\"Ah!--But am I again mistaken, (his eye falling on the swamp-oak stick,)\r\nor don't you go a little lame, sir?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never was lame in my life.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed? I fancied I had perceived not a limp, but a hitch, a slight\r\nhitch;--some experience in these things--divined some hidden cause of\r\nthe hitch--buried bullet, may be--some dragoons in the Mexican war\r\ndischarged with such, you know.--Hard fate!\" he sighed, \"little pity for\r\nit, for who sees it?--have you dropped anything?\"\r\n\r\nWhy, there is no telling, but the stranger was bowed over, and might\r\nhave seemed bowing for the purpose of picking up something, were it not\r\nthat, as arrested in the imperfect posture, he for the moment so\r\nremained; slanting his tall stature like a mainmast yielding to the\r\ngale, or Adam to the thunder.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJKFFWK119C29H84DSW9M","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKB7PB60B277EFXB19HH8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKB8EJYZGXE8ZTVHFWSAT","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:01.294Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:08.806Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}