Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1875 — Going to the Dentist’s. [ARTICLE]

Going to the Dentist’s.

I like to come across a man with the toothache. There’s something so pleasant in advising him to stufi cotton in it, to use camphor, creosote, peppermint and “ relief,” that I always feel better after giving it. I have been there —had an aching snae —and I know justiow it feels. It used to wake me up nights and make me mad at noon, and set me swearing- early in the morning. 1 didn’t meet man or woman but what they advised me. One said that a hot knittijg-needle pushed down on the roots was an excellent thing; and others said it must be dug out by the dentist. » * If I sat down to dinner that old tooth began to growl. If I went to bed, or got up, or went to a party, or stayed at home, “she” growled just the same. Ii wasn’t always a growl; sometimes it was a jump that made my hair stand up, and a sort of cutting pain that made me make up faces at the baby, slam doors and break windows. I ate cotton, peppenpint, camphor and opium until I got black in the face, and that old snag kept right on. I put bags of hot ashes to my cheek, applied mustard, held my head in the oven, took a sweat, and the ache still ached. ' After the third week the neighbor*

t - - —— didn’t lei their boys pass my house, and tin-peddlers and book-canvassers went around on another street. I was becoming a menagerie, and at last I decided to have my tooth out. I decided to, and then I decided not to. I changed my mind four times in one afternoon, and at last I went. The dentist was glad -to see me. He said if he could not take that tooth out without hurting me he would give me a million dollars. It got easier as he talked, and I concluded not to have it pulled. I started down-stairs, but h jump caught me, and I rushed back. He said he would look at it; perhapß it did not need pulling at all, but he could kill the nerve. By dint of flattery he got me in the chair. Then he softly inserted a knife and cut away the gums. I looked up and said I would kill him, but he begged me not to; said the cutting was all the pain there was to it. He finally got me to lean back and open my mouth, and he slipped in his forceps and closed them around the tooth. “ Ohsordorordonbordosororor!” I cried, but he didn’t pay any attention to it. He drew in a full breath, grasped the forceps tightly and then he pulled. Great spoons! but didn’t it seem as if my head was going! I tried to shout, grappled at him, kicked, and then he held up the old snag and said: _ “ There, I guess you won’t feel any more aching!” I leaped down and hugged him. I Sajsed him $10,000,000. I told him to e mj“"Ebnie'"TiiF”BSTSe‘ _ 'fnre , vTsr. U hugged him again. I shook hands with everybody on the street, kissed my wife, bought the baby a dozen rattle-boxes in a heap, and it seemed to me as if the world was too small for me, I was so happy.