Florida paper money was just as valuable as silver. It held its value through much of the war. Confederate paper money, with nothing to back it up, didn’t. Actually, all eleven Southern states printed their own money. They planned to make it good in various ways.
Three days after purchasing the medical bag we came to an isolated farmhouse north of Blountstown. It was just a house in the woods. There wasn’t much of a farm there. Having talked frequently about home cooking, we decided to ride in and beg, or buy, some home-cooked food. Two barking dogs met us eighty yards from the house. The bluetick coonhounds looked harmless enough. As we approached the house with the blueticks yapping around us, a woman in her late twenties stepped out the front door with a shotgun across her arm. Even at forty yards I could see the hammer was back. A small boy of ten or twelve stepped out behind her with a squirrel rifle across his arm. Pulling his horse up, Henry raised his right hand. I followed suit. Henry spoke, but couldn’t be heard over the dogs so the boy came forward and quieted them.
“We’re a physician and his assistant on our way to Pensacola. We’re looking for a warm meal and friendly greeting along the way,” Henry said.
“Coon, tie those dogs. Are you a real physician?” the woman asked.
Without saying anything, Henry lifted his bag. The initials on it were H.W. That was when he temporarily took the name Henry Watson. I had learned to keep my mouth shut, as hard as it might be to believe, and was whoever he introduced me as. He said it might prevent complications down the road.
The woman, Ella Mae, got Henry’s mare’s bridle and tied her up in front of the house.
“I’ve got a sick child, please help me with her,” she was saying, tears in her eyes. “She’s not sick right now, but she gets down with tonsillitis every couple of weeks. It’s getting more frequent and is worse every time. She’ll probably choke to death next time. I don’t know a doctor and don’t have any money. Please help us.”
Henry replied, “A little hope is better than no hope at all.”
He was talking to me but she didn’t know it.
Taking his medical bag, Henry walked in just like a doctor on call. The girl, Mary, looked well enough at the moment.
Summoning me to his side, Henry said, “Benjamin, look down her throat.”
He knew my name was just plain Ben, but I looked. There wasn’t any infection, and her forehead was cool.
“We’re going to try to help you out. You have to help us out by being brave. Why, you have the same beautiful blue eyes as your mother,” Henry said to the girl.
He was already looking in her eyes and ears, and passing out the smooth talk. I could almost smell the chicken frying. Strangely enough, Henry really looked like a doctor.
“Stand outside and face the sunlight so we can see what we’re doing,” Henry told the girl.
I turned to him and whispered, “Are you crazy? We can’t take her tonsils out.”
“Sure we can. It tells about it in the book. I’ve had mine out. I was awake and watched most of it. Also, they need to come out now while they aren’t infected. They can’t be taken out while they’re swollen.” he said.
After starting a small fire, Henry put a small, slender, flat instrument in it until the instrument was red hot on one end. Still talking to Mary all the time, he gave her a couple of drops of laudanum and talked her in to letting him blindfold her, all laid out on her back. He then washed his hands and scissors. Putting Ella Mae and Coon by Mary’s sides to hold her hands and comfort her and me at her head to keep it steady, Henry gave her a whiff of chloroform. He then put a roll of leather in one side of her mouth to keep it open. While holding her tongue out, he started fishing down her throat with a loop on the end of some thread. When he had her tonsils snared, he reached down her throat with his scissors, whacked them off and pulled them out with the thread. Of course there was some blood until he cauterized the wound.
“She can’t drink anything hot for three days. Not even soup. Milk, strained fruit juice, cold sugar water, or honey dissolved in cold water will be okay,” Henry said.
“We don’t have any of that,” Ella Mae said. “We only have some bullas jelly and some cane syrup.”
“That’ll be fine dissolved in water,” he said. “Do you have a neighbor with a cow?”
“Yes,” she said. “Bout three miles from here.”
Turning to Coon, Henry said, “Here’s five cents. Take my mare and get some fresh milk. Don’t run the horse.”
“I’ll go with him,” I said, thinking to keep him from running the horse.
Handing me a dollar, Henry said, “If there’s a place to get them, bring some supplies. I don’t think there’s much to eat here.”
While we were gone I found out their ages. Though he looked to be ten, Coon was fourteen. Mary, who looked older than Coon, wouldn’t be twelve until late December. Their mother was barely twenty-eight.
Arriving back at the house we found Mary asleep. She had been sleeping off and on for the whole time the two of us were gone.
Henry said, “Ben, I think we should stay here for a few days to make sure that Mary gets along okay.”
Smitten by Mary and her mother, I replied, “That’s fine with me.”
Henry and I stayed five days and nights. Mary was up and around and eating scrambled eggs, grits, and chicken soup before we left. The rest of us were eating a lot of stuffed raccoon and fall greens. Coon got his name from his constant coon hunting. Fortunately, I had bought some beans, rice, flour, grits, and salt pork with the dollar. It was a pleasurable and restful five days.
Our luck remained strong. Ella Mae and her husband, who was off at the war, were from a little settlement north of Pensacola. As a result of having lived there, she knew the lay of the land and drew it out for us. Things couldn’t have happened better.
November 15, 1861
Leaving some of our things at Ella Mae’s lightened Smokey’s load enough that Coon, who left with us, could ride him. After we told Coon the entire story about what happened to Henry and what we were going to do, Coon had announced that he was going. He thought it would be a great adventure. I was surprised when his ma said he could go. After giving it some thought, I decided that Coon was allowed to go for the same reason that I was allowed to go. He was the reason for us to go back by his house.
As we rode, I spent lots of time thinking about Ella Mae and Mary. I didn’t say anything about my thoughts to Coon or Henry. It was real easy not saying anything to Coon. He never did talk very much.
Henry and I continued reading the medical book and discussed it daily. Those discussions kept me reminded of Mary’s tonsils. Having read about taking tonsils out, and having seen Henry take out a set, I figured I could do the same if the situation required it. Occasionally, I daydreamed about removing my first set of tonsils from a child of a young woman with the same qualities as Ella Mae. I was to find the medical profession is usually not so glamorous.
We hadn’t been riding long when Coon said, “My pa’s fighting for the Yankees. We got a letter from him that says there’s lots of Southern men doing the same.”
This startling piece of information left Henry and me silent until Henry said, “We’re going to kill some Yankees. How do you feel about that?”
“Pa’s way up north and I don’t know any Yankees down here. I don’t care,” Coon said.
After reflecting on that, Henry said, “I’m going to get revenge for Pa. I don’t care either. I’d take revenge on the Confederates if they were the ones.”
Coon said, “Me too.”