The latter, however, who was not the Bill Dickey of this time, but an unkempt and shrewd old man of an earlier date, had conferred with his own recollection for a minute, and asked, reflectively, of his clerk, "Lemme see, we've got a skeleton somewheres about, 'ain't we, Eph ?" And had finally unearthed--not adjacent to the old doctor's medical books, for that would have been to much method in madness, but in some far-removed nook--a ghastly box, containing a reasonably complete little skeleton.

Then was the laugh all on Colonel Jack Lamson, who had his bet to pay, and was put to hard shifts to avoid making his grewsome purchase, the article being offered exceedingly cheap on account of its unsalable properties.
"It's been here a matter of twenty-five year, ever sence the old doctor died.

Them books, an' that, was cleaned out of his office, an' brought over here," the old storekeeper had said.

"Let ye have it cheap, Colonel; call it a shillin'." "Guess I won't take it to-day." "Call it a sixpence." "What in thunder do you suppose I want a skeleton for ?" asked the Colonel, striding out, while the storekeeper called after him, with such a relish of his own wit that it set all the loafers to laughing and made them remember it: "Guess ye'd find out if ye didn't have one, Colonel; an' I guess, sence natur's gin ye all the one she's ever goin' to, ye'll never have a chance to git another as cheap as this." That same little skeleton was yet for sale when Jerome purchased his medical books at the price of waste-paper, and might possibly have been thrown into the bargain had he wished to study anatomy.
Jerome sought only to gain an extension of any old wife's knowledge of healing roots and herbs and the treatment of simple and common maladies.

Surgery he did not meddle with, until one night, about a year later, when Jake Noyes, Doctor Prescott's man, came over secretly with a little whimpering dog in his arms.
"We run over this little fellar," he said to Jerome, when he had been summoned to the door, "an' his leg's broke, an' the doctor told me I'd better finish him up; guess he's astray; but"-- Jake's voice dropped to a whisper--"I've heard what you're up to, an' I've brought a splint, an', if you say so, I'll show you how to set a bone." So up in his little chamber, with his mother and Elmira listening curiously below, and a little whining, trembling dog for a patient, Jerome learned to set a bone.