{"id":"01KG8AKCKR23FJPWDT4XA81R3C","cid":"bafkreiajq4ifoznnxpkip32cprebh3djt5yi5sszug5xclvninlvcpsymy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4892,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":4800,"text":"CHAPTER XXI.\r\n\r\nA HARD CASE.\r\n\r\n\r\n\"Yarbs, yarbs; natur, natur; you foolish old file you! He diddled you\r\nwith that hocus-pocus, did he? Yarbs and natur will cure your incurable\r\ncough, you think.\"\r\n\r\nIt was a rather eccentric-looking person who spoke; somewhat ursine in\r\naspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear's-skin; a\r\nhigh-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over\r\nbehind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a\r\ndouble-barreled gun in hand--a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman,\r\nof Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and\r\nsentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a\r\nSpartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with woodcraft\r\nand rifles.\r\n\r\nHe must have overheard some of the talk between the miser and the\r\nherb-doctor; for, just after the withdrawal of the one, he made up to\r\nthe other--now at the foot of the stairs leaning against the baluster\r\nthere--with the greeting above.\r\n\r\n\"Think it will cure me?\" coughed the miser in echo; \"why shouldn't it?\r\nThe medicine is nat'ral yarbs, pure yarbs; yarbs must cure me.\"\r\n\r\n\"Because a thing is nat'ral, as you call it, you think it must be good.\r\nBut who gave you that cough? Was it, or was it not, nature?\"\r\n\r\n\"Sure, you don't think that natur, Dame Natur, will hurt a body, do\r\nyou?\"\r\n\r\n\"Natur is good Queen Bess; but who's responsible for the cholera?\"\r\n\r\n\"But yarbs, yarbs; yarbs are good?\"\r\n\r\n\"What's deadly-nightshade? Yarb, ain't it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, that a Christian man should speak agin natur and yarbs--ugh, ugh,\r\nugh!--ain't sick men sent out into the country; sent out to natur and\r\ngrass?\"\r\n\r\n\"Aye, and poets send out the sick spirit to green pastures, like lame\r\nhorses turned out unshod to the turf to renew their hoofs. A sort of\r\nyarb-doctors in their way, poets have it that for sore hearts, as for\r\nsore lungs, nature is the grand cure. But who froze to death my teamster\r\non the prairie? And who made an idiot of Peter the Wild Boy?\"\r\n\r\n\"Then you don't believe in these 'ere yarb-doctors?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yarb-doctors? I remember the lank yarb-doctor I saw once on a\r\nhospital-cot in Mobile. One of the faculty passing round and seeing who\r\nlay there, said with professional triumph, 'Ah, Dr. Green, your yarbs\r\ndon't help ye now, Dr. Green. Have to come to us and the mercury now,\r\nDr. Green.--Natur! Y-a-r-b-s!'\"\r\n\r\n\"Did I hear something about herbs and herb-doctors?\" here said a\r\nflute-like voice, advancing.\r\n\r\nIt was the herb-doctor in person. Carpet-bag in hand, he happened to be\r\nstrolling back that way.\r\n\r\n\"Pardon me,\" addressing the Missourian, \"but if I caught your words\r\naright, you would seem to have little confidence in nature; which,\r\nreally, in my way of thinking, looks like carrying the spirit of\r\ndistrust pretty far.\"\r\n\r\n\"And who of my sublime species may you be?\" turning short round upon\r\nhim, clicking his rifle-lock, with an air which would have seemed half\r\ncynic, half wild-cat, were it not for the grotesque excess of the\r\nexpression, which made its sincerity appear more or less dubious.\r\n\r\n\"One who has confidence in nature, and confidence in man, with some\r\nlittle modest confidence in himself.\"\r\n\r\n\"That's your Confession of Faith, is it? Confidence in man, eh? Pray,\r\nwhich do you think are most, knaves or fools?\"\r\n\r\n\"Having met with few or none of either, I hardly think I am competent to\r\nanswer.\"\r\n\r\n\"I will answer for you. Fools are most.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why do you think so?\"\r\n\r\n\"For the same reason that I think oats are numerically more than horses.\r\nDon't knaves munch up fools just as horses do oats?\"\r\n\r\n\"A droll, sir; you are a droll. I can appreciate drollery--ha, ha, ha!\"\r\n\r\n\"But I'm in earnest.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJM4MS3PS24HNRJ04GFSB","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCKR1JAT9PTDCG79K19Q","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:02.680Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.614Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}