Transcribed by Nathaniel Lucy Told by James Hill
Alma, Arkansas
May 23, 1951
Reel 123
Talk: Remedy for Asthma
James Hill: And here is another remedy I have which is written
in dialect for the tisics or asthma.
One of them kids of Joseph's has got the tisics. They never
got a wink of sleep last night on account of his wheezing
and gasping for breath and the horses were down back by the
hundred and sixty acres, woodland and no moon. And they
waited til morning to call that newfangled doctor from . .
. Springs and he told that young'un he had asthma. That doc
was a-spouting awfully big words when I went in and I says
to him, "Doc, you can call it any name you want to call it
but I says I know tisics when I see it. And I know
young'uns too like a book. And when he tells Joseph there
ain't no cure for asthma I says there may be a cure for
asthma Doc but whatever you call but there's a sure cure
for tisics. What's this one here's got." "You'll have to
know I spent hundreds of dollars of college tuitions
studying disease and how to treat 'em and put I a whole
eight years of my life doing it. I have a diploma to show
that I'm qualified to treat sick folks." And I says, "I
spent seventyfive years of my life in the school of
experience and gathered tons of herbs and made a thousand
gallons more or less of teas. And I got eleven young'uns of
my own and forty-odd grand-young'uns and seven or eight
great-grand-young'uns, all fat and sassy to show that I'm
qualified to cure 'em. Not just treat 'em. And not just
treat'em. And . . . leaves will ease the case of tisics
right quick. And for a permanent cure, you just stand a
young'un outside a white oak tree and make a mark how tall
he is. Then take and auger and bore a hole in that tree and
cut a whick of hair off the youn'uns head and put in the
hole. And then cut a wooden peg and drive it in the hole
and when that young'un grows past that mark on that white
oak tree, he's well of the tisics for all time to come. So
young man, you may believe all that stuff them thar
professors told you about the old school you was braggin'
about but I'll bet that the closest to a young'un they ever
get's is when they meet one on the street."
Well what I have here are a few more superstitions. They aren't
in any order at all.