The Washington herald., 1921-02-13

xEFF PETERS has been engaged
in as many schemes for making
money as there are recipes for
cooking rice in Charleston. s. c.
Best of all like to hear him tell
of his earlier days when he sold
liniments and cough cures on street
corners. living hand to mouth, heart
to heart with the people. throwing
heads or tails with fortune for his
last coin.
Il struck Fisher Hill, Arkansaw,"
said he. ''in a buckskin suit, moe
casins, long hair and a thirty-carat
diamond ring that 1 got from an
actor in Texarkana. l don't know
what he ever did with the pocket
knife I swapped him for it.
"I was DR.. Waugh-hoo. the cele-
! brated Indian medicine man. I car
ried only one best bet just then,
and that was Resurrection Bitters.
1t was made of life giving plants
and herbs accidentally discovered
| by Ta-qua-la, the beautiful wife Of
the chief of the Choctaw nation,
while gathering truck to garnish
platter of boiled dog for the annual
corn dance.
Business hadn't been good at the
| last town so l only had FIVE dollars.
| went to the Fisher Hill druggist
and he credited me for half a gross
of eight bottles and corks. I
had the labels and ingredients in
my valise. LETT over from the last
town. Life began to look rosy
again after l got in my hotel room
with the water running from the
tap and the Resurrection Bitters
lining up on the table by the dozen.
Fake? No, sir. There was two
dollars worth of fluid extract of
cinchona and a dimes worth of ami
line in that half-gross of bitters. I've
gone through towns years after
wards and had folks ask for 'em
again.
Il hired wagon that night and
commenced selling the bitters on
Main Street. Fisher Hill was low,
malarial town; and compound
! hypothetical pneumo cardiac anti
scorbutic tonic was justwhat 1 dag
nosed the crowd as needing. The
bitters started off like sweetbreads-
on-toast at a vegetarian dinner. 1
had sold two dozen at fifty cents
apiece when 1 felt somebody pull
my coat tail. I knew what that
meant; so 1 climbed down and
sneaked a ve-dollar bill into the
hand OF a man with a German sill
yer star on his lapel.
"'Constable,' says l. It's a fine
night
Have you got city license he
asks, to sell this illegitimate es-
sence of spooju that you flatter by
the name of medicine"
Il have not says l. 1 didn't
know you had a city. II / can find
it tomorrow I'll take one out if it's
necessary
I'll have to close you up till you
, do, says the constable.
Il quit selling and went back to
! the hotel. was talking to the
landlord about it.
oh, you won't stand no show in
Fisher HILL says he. DR.. .Hoskins,
the only doctor here, is a brother
in-law of the mayor, and they won't
allow no fake doctor to, practice in
town
"T don't practice medicine says
l. I've got a State peddler's license,
they demand it,
Il went to the mayors Office the
next morning and they told me he
hadn't showed up yet. They didn't
know when he'd be down. So Doc
Waugh boo lunches down again in
hotel chair and lights a jimpson-
weed regalia, and waits.
BY and by a young man in a blue
recktie slips into the chair next to
me and asks the time.
Hslf-past ten says I, and you
are Andy Tucker. I've seen Won
work. Wasn't it you that put the
Great Cupid Combination package ON
the Southern States? Let's see, It
was Chilean diamond engagement
ring wedding ring. potato mash :
er, bottle of soothing syrup and
dorothy Vernon-all for'50 cents.
Andy was pleased to hear thai I