. Stephen of Philadelphia; a story of Penn's colony . cold water. Of course a great steam immedi-ately filled the hut, and the small opening was closedas tightly as possible by two mats. We thought the man surely would be stifled, for itmust have been much as if he had been held over akettle of boiling water, forced to breathe in the steam;but those who had charge of the business gave little orno heed to his possible suffering. They squattedoutside the hut, burning tobacco in the little stonebowls, until suddenly we saw the mats thrust aside, and the sick Indiancrawled out, look-ing exactly as
. Stephen of Philadelphia; a story of Penn's colony . cold water. Of course a great steam immedi-ately filled the hut, and the small opening was closedas tightly as possible by two mats. We thought the man surely would be stifled, for itmust have been much as if he had been held over akettle of boiling water, forced to breathe in the steam;but those who had charge of the business gave little orno heed to his possible suffering. They squattedoutside the hut, burning tobacco in the little stonebowls, until suddenly we saw the mats thrust aside, and the sick Indiancrawled out, look-ing exactly as ifhe had been wellboiled. The rest of thesavages, who werepuffing smoke fromtheir mouths, didnot so much asturn their heads, when the Indian, dripping withperspiration, leaped into the river. I said to myself that if he did not count on drowning himself to escape the steam from the hot rocks, he would certainly be killed by going into the cold water while he was so warm; but in this I was mistaken. He swam around while I might have counted twenty,. 76 STEPHEN OF PHILADELPHIA and then, coming ashore, started on a run for the village,leaving his friends to go on with burning tobacco, or tofollow him, as best pleased them. FINISHING THE CURE Jethro and I were so rilled with curiosity to learnhow long the sick man would live after such roughtreatment, that we ran after him, coming into the vil-lage just as all the boys were forming in a ring onthe cleared ground where I had often seen them playball. The Indian whom we had followed was well wrappedin blankets by this time, and had seated himself on theearth in the middle of the ring of boys. He had onhis knees what looked to be a piece of board, worn, orground, very smooth, and two small sticks. You can guess that by this time Jethro and I hadour eyes open very wide, for it was the oddest way oftaking medicine we had ever seen. The sick man began to tap on the board with thesticks, and sing, or howl, in the most dismal sup
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