property rights, she showed Yan how to chip off the bark of the
Black-cherry. "Don't chip off all around; that's bad luck--take it
on'y from the sunny side." She filled a basket with the pieces and
they returned home.

Here she filled a jar with bits of the inner layer, then, pouring
water over it, let it stand for a week. The water was then changed to
a dark brown stuff with a bitter taste and a sweet, aromatic smell.

"It's terrible good," she said. "Granny always keeps it handy. It
cures lots of people. Now there was Bud Ellis--the doctors just guv
him up. They said he didn't have a single lung left, and he come
around to Granny. He used to make fun of Granny; but now he wuz plumb
scairt. At first Granny chased him away; then when she seen that he
was awful sick, she got sorry and told him how to make Lung Balm. He
was to make two gallons each time and bring it to her. Then she took
and fixed it so it was one-half as much and give it back to him. Well,
in six months if he wasn't all right."

Biddy now complained nightly of "feelin's" in her chest. These
feelings could be controlled only by a glass or two of Lung Balm.
Her condition must have been critical, for one night after several
necessary doses of Balm her head seemed affected. She became
abusive to the lady of the house and at the end of the month a less
interesting help was in her place.

There were many lessons good and bad that Yan might have drawn from
this; but the only one that he took in was that the Black-cherry bark
is a wonderful remedy. The family doctor said that it really was so,
and Yan treasured up this as a new and precious fragment of woodcraft.