Pa had been quite close to the yellow
girls and when he found out that yellow fever was a disease that catches
you when not looking, and in 15 minutes you look like a corpse, and in
four hours you are liable to be a sure enough corpse, he shook the
yellow girls, and asked an old sailor what a man ought to do who has
been exposed to yellow fever, and the old sailor, who has had yellow
fever lots of times, told pa to strip off his clothes and take a bath of
prepared mustard, and rub it in thoroughly, and then wipe it off, and
take a vinegar rub, and after that sprinkle a little red pepper on
himself, put on different clothes and drink about a gallon of red
lemonade and he could defy yellow fever.
Pa is an easy mark and he believed the old sailor, who is tattooed and
makes a show of himself with the freaks, and pa took a change of clothes
and a bottle of mustard and a cruet of vinegar and a bottle of red
pepper and went into a dressing room and got behind a wagon and began to
take the cure the sailor had prescribed. I don't know as it was right to
do it, but about the time pa had got to the red pepper course and was
sprinkling it on his skin pretty thick, and he was beginning to get
pretty hot, and was yelling a little, I told the chief of police, who
was looking around with the health officer for suspicious cases, that
there was a man acting sort of queer behind the wagon that had a piece
of canvas over the wheels.
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