Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1879 — “Pizun and Ki-Nine. [ARTICLE]

“Pizun and Ki-Nine.

Detroit Free Press. She wasn’t after hair dye, cosmetics, scented soap, or any of those gimcracks, bit when the druggist had finished putting up a prescription to cure a long-faced boy of a backing cough, she turned from the stove and asked: “Do you keep and medicines and pizuns, aud so on?” “Oh, yes, we keep all such things.” “And ki-nine?” “Yes, we have quinine.” “Well. 1 called in to see about getlln’ some pizuu and some ki-nine, but I dunuo. So many folks have been slaughtered by druggists’ mistakes that I’m e’euamost afraid to even ask for eamfur gum farther off than any other woman in Michigan. Have you ever killed anybody by puttin’ up morphine for bakin’ powder?” “Never.”

“Been in the x business long?” “Only twenty-one years.’” “Well, you orter kuow gum ’rabic from sweet oil by this time, but some men are awful careless. I’ve had a brother pizuned by wrong medcine, and I’m a little shaky. Where is your ki-nine?” “This is it,” he replied as he took down the jar. She wet her finger, pushed it Into the jar, and .then rubbed it on her tongue. “Tastes like it, but I dunno. Sure that ain’t morphine?’, “Yes, very sure.” “Sure your clerk washed the jar out clean afore he put the ki-nine in?” “Oh, I washed it myself.” “If this shouldn’t be ki-nine you’d have the law put to you the worst

kind. We’ve got money in the bank, atid we’d never settle for no $10,000!” “I know It to lie quinine.” “Weil, theu, gimme fifteen cents’ worth, and I want down weight, too. If I’m treated well I’m a great hand to trade at one place, but the min net I see auy sth gin ess or cheatin’, a yoke of oxen couldn’t pull me into that store again.” He weighed out the drug, labeled it with great care, and then she said: “Now' I want ten cents’ worth of pizun to kill rata.” "What kind?” “Why the pizun kind, of coarse. Pizun is pizun the world over. Don’t seem as you were used to handling ’em.”

“Do you want arsenic?” "Certainly; but you want to be powerful keerful! I’m a woman of 59, and I’ve nursed the sick ever since I was a girl, but I never handled pizun without a chill creepin* up my back. Where is it?” I « ■ He handed down the jar, aud she smelt of the stopper, shook her head, turned the jar around are whispered: "That looks a powerful sight like cream-a- tartar. ” “Oh, no—that’s arsenic, and no mistake.” “Well, I’ve got to take the chances, I ’spose. I’ll take ten cents’ worth—down weight. Any one who will be stingy sellin’ pizun will be stingy in other things, and I do hate a stingy Iverson. My first husband was powerful stingy, and he was struck by lightning.” When the poison had been weighed ami labeled, she carefully took up the package and said: “Now, then, write on this that it is to be kept in the old china tea-pot, on the third shelf in the pautry, and that it’s for rats. Then write on this ki-nine that it is to lie kept in the old coffee-pot in tbe"cupboard, and that it’s for chills.” The druggist followed orders,and the old lady put the “pizun” in her pocket and the “ki-nine” in her reticule, and went out saying: “It may be all right, but I dunno. If my old man is took off instead of the rats I’ll begin a law suit next day after the funeral.”