The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-03-27
opium and Ki.nine."

SCcuIcu soap, OI any Oh CnOSc SlmCr8CKS,
but when the druggist had finished
putting up prescription to cure a
1ong-faced boy of hacking cough, she
turned from the stove and asked:
"Do you keep drugs and medicines
and pizuns and so onp''
"Oh, yes, we keep all such things"
"And ki-nine?'
"Yes, we have quinine.'
"Well, l called in to see about gittin'
some pizun and some ki-nine, but
dunno. So many folks have been
slaughtered by druggists mistakes that
I'm eanemost afraid to even ask for
camfur gum, tho l suppose l can smell
camfur gum farther off than any other
woman in Michigan. Have you ever
killed anybody by putin up morphine
for bakin' powder?"
"Never."
"Been in the business longP"
"Only twenty-one years.
"Well, you orter know gum 'Rabic
from sweet oil by this time, but some
men are awful keerless. I've had a
brother pizuned by wrong medicine,
and I'm a little shaky. Where is your
ki-nine?"
"This is it," he replied, as he took
down the jar.
She wet her finger, pushed it into
the jar and then rubbed it on her
tongue.
:sTastes like it, but 1 dunno. Sure
that amt morphine?"
eyes, very sure"
"Sure your clerk washed the jar out
clean afore he put the ki-nine imp
"Oh, l washed it myself"
elf this shouldn't be ki-nine you'd
have the law put to you the worst kind.
We've got money in the bank, and we'd
never settle for no ten thousand dol
larsr'
81 know it to be quiniue.'
Swell, then, gimme fifteen cents
worth, and l want down weight, too.
If I'm treated well I'm great hand to
trade at one place, but the minnit see
any stinginess or cheatin' a yoke of
oxen couldn't pull me into that store
again.
He weighed out the drug, labeled it
with great care, and then she said:
"Now l want ten cents worth of
pizun to kill rats
"What kind?"
"Why the pizun kind, of course.
Pizun is pizun the world over. Don't
seem as you were used to handling
'em."
"Do you want arsenic p
"Certainly, but you want to be pow
erful keerful I'm a woman of fifty
nine, and I've nuss'd the sick ever
since I was a girl, but l never handle
pizun without q chill creepin' up my
back. Where is it p
He handed down the jar, and she
smelt of the stopper, shook her head,
turned the jar around and whispered
"That looks a powerful sight like
cream-a-tartar ~
"Oh, no-that's arsenic, and no mis-
take"
"Well, I've got to take the chances,
I 'spose. I'll take ten cents worth
down weight. Any one who will be
stingy sellin' pizun will be stingy in
other things, and I do hate stingy
person. NY first husband was power
full stingy, and he was struck by light
ming"
When the poison had been weighed
and labeled she carefully took up the
package and said:
"Now, then, write on this that it is
to be kept in the old china teapot, on
the third shelf in the pantry, and that
it's for rats. Then write on this
ki-nine that it is to be kept in the old
cofee-pot in the cupboard, and that
it's for chills."
The druggist followed orders, and
the old lady put the opium" in her
pocket and the "ki-nine in her reti-
Guile, and went out saying:
cit may be all right, but l dunno:
If my old man is took off instead Of
the rats. I'll begin lawsuit next day
after the funeral r'-Detroit Free Press.