The Major
dropped the bottle, but he also dropped himself, two shelves, and
about six dozen glass jars of everything you ever heard of. Powers
of darkness! Flat on his back laid the hero of many charges,
whilest over his manly form and face trickled cough mixture, Canady
balsam, liniment, sugar syrup, castor oil, and more sticky, oily,
messy kinds of stuff than I'll ever tell you. The worst of it was
that a bottle of carmine had landed last in the wreck and, bustin',
flew over everything. As there wasn't a dry spot for a rod it
looked like the Major had done a turn of bleedin' at every vein
same as the young man we used to read about at school. In fact it
was much worse than that. It appeared to be the most awful tragedy
any one man ever was concerned in.
"Before we got our wits about us poor Mrs. Pumpey see her Major
afloat on a gory sea, and without askin' for explanations she give
a loud holler and fainted on our stock of fancy dishes.
"'Here's where we make a lot of money, I don't think,' screeches
Hadds--he was an excitable person, that Hadds. 'Come!' he hollers,
'help me get 'em out of here! There's enough chloroform loose to
sleep the bunch of us!'
"We lugged the Major and his wife to the back of the store. I made
a piller for her out'n some rolls of wall-paper, but the Major had
to get along as best he could. There he lay, his little round
stummick stickin' in the air, breathin' like a wind-broken horse.
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