Chapter Four
“MISS MARY AND THE
MADSTONE”
Mary Woods Shiflett:
I'll tell you about the madstone. We lived down in this little place called Mt. Fair. So my aunt lived with my mother and father and she was settin' out sweet potato slips and bushin' 'em as she went along. And this was my cat. So the cat followed me on up there and I set down on the ground. I were too little to set out plants like the older ones. So the cat followed me up there. When I set down that cat just walked right up side of me and just jumped, made a lunge all at once and grabbed me right in the mouth and split the corner of my mouth open. Naturally I hollered and cried, and my mother hollered up there and said, "Lucy, what are you doin' to that child of mine?"
My aunt hollered back and said, "Lord, Annie," said, "the cat's tore Mary's face up." My aunt got the cat off me. Beat the cat with a handful of brushes. She had to beat that cat off me. So she wore all the leaves off the switches before she could get that cat off. That cat got that holt in there and when she got done beatin' that cat just split my mouth right wide open.
There's a man workin' up there in the field above our house, and she hollered for this man to come down there and see about the cat, that she didn't know what was wrong with the cat, that the cat might be mad. And the man came and he picked the shovel up and when he made at the cat, the cat made at him and the cat passed him. When that cat made a lunge at him, gonna bite him, too, why the cat passed him and the man was right quick. He turned around and the next lick he hit, he hit the cat and he knocked the cat out and killed the cat. They taken the cat and put it away and buried it. So I went runnin' to the house so that I could get the blood off and my mother said, "Well, you take her up to Mr. Badden's and see if that cat's mad."
So here me and her went. Mr. Andrew Badden had the madstone. He run this store down there then, but they lived up on the hill there. Mr. Badden got the madstone out. That madstone was a great thing, but it was just about that big. And it was gray lookin'. Just about a inch-and-a-half and 'twas gray lookin'. 'Twas oblong shaped. 'Twas little holes in that stone, were just about big as the wooden part of matches. It just had little holes. It looked just like a wasp's nest. That's the way it looked. They got 'em a little pan of water, just set it on the stove and 'twas hot -- got the water hot. They'd take that and stick it in that hot water. They had 'nough of play of it to stick it in this water, you see, and take it back without the whole stone gettin' wet. Then they'd just keep stickin' that to your jaw. And they said, "Well, if the cat's mad, that stone'll stick on your jaw," but said, "if it's not, it won't stick." After they dipped it in the water they stuck this stone to my mouth here, and when they done that, that stone just drawed right in and that stone stuck nine times. You know, they'd put it on there, they'd take it off then and dip it in the water to get the poison out of it. And that stone stuck nine times, and the tenth time they put it on it wouldn't stick, and they just rinsed it off. But that little stew pan they put that water in was green as grass on top. I'll betcha they was at least a big spoonful of poison in that water. Were just green as grass, just covered the pan of water. Oh, my face swollen. It was settin' out just like that before I got to that man's house. From down there in that bottom on up on that hill my face was stickin' out like that. But by the time I got home my face had gone down a whole lot. Drawed that poison out of it, you see.
They used it on me and I don't know what I would've done. If it hadn't been for that, in those years, you know, that's been way back, oh, that's been back fifty-some years. Never did go to a doctor, but my mouth stayed kindly sore for a long time, you know, 'cause it just cut it wide open from inside to out 'cause that cat just grabbed my whole mouth right in his mouth. See, if she'd a choked him off it mighta not split my mouth open. But you see, it scared her and I was scared to death. She beat him off with the handful of bushes that she was bushin' the sweet potatoes with.
That 'as the first one I ever seen, and that's been the last one I've ever seen. So some of 'em laughed and said, "In eighteen years," says, "you'll go mad." So I'm done past 60. Sometime I reckon they think I have been like the cat. That's what they do. Just suddenly go mad and start bitin' people -- I guess that's what they do, just go mad. They call 'em up in here rabies now, you know. So that's what they used in them days, was madstones, but now, you see, they have all kinds of serum and stuff in the hospitals now for that.
That was a valuable piece of property. If the old folks at that time had a known, that woulda been worth dollars and dollars today. They couldn't any of 'em tell whatever happened to the madstone. They didn't know whether somebody got it or whether they lost it because it was sump'n shoulda been put away in a particular place, not just laid around anywhere. Now when they put that on me they just reached up on a shelf and got it. Reached up on a shelf 'cause they didn't think it was too valuable. Maybe they would never need it, you know. I don't know where they got the madstone.
Mervin Sandridge:
Oh, I've heard of that all my life about the madstone. They used to have a lot of what they called mad dogs, mad cats, and they used to have a rock what they called a madstone and they'd put that rock on you and would draw that poison out, a snake'd bit you or a dog'd bit you.
Yea, there used to be a awful lot of that mad dogs, mad cats. And there used to be certain people had certain kinda gums would bite you was just the same as a mad dog bitin' you. Then they'd use that rock to draw that poison out. They used to have one at Boonesville. Mary tells about a cat bit her one time and they took her to that thing. She's just about dead. And they claimed they put it on her and it drawed all that poison out of her. I'm pretty sure it 'as a mad cat bit her. They just kept it there. That was the one that they had, and ev'rybody in this community around here used it. It was just a small rock. Old folks said madstones comes from the craw of a raven. I reckon it was my great-granddaddy run that store at Boonesville at the time, and that's where they had it. I believe Mary said she don't know whatever become of that madstone, but it used to be in our family. You know, if a man had that thing today he could git a million dollars for it. If he could actually prove that just sump'n poison bite you and put it on you and draw it out.
You hear 'em talk about quotin' scriptures to stop bleedin'. My mother could do that. She could stop blood, take the fire out. She did tell me it was a verse. Said, "It's a verse you have to say."
I said, "Well, tell me. I can learn it." I said, "I can learn it as good as you can if you tell me what to say." I said, "I can say it."
"No, you won't say it right." And she never would tell me.
I used to try to git her to tell me, and she never would tell me. A man could tell a woman and a woman could tell a man. I remember I was just a kid; we lived near an old man that lived up on the road. He had a stiff leg. Old man Sam Walton. Before he told my mother, we lived back where two fellows were makin' liquor. They went to boil low wines to double it and that stuff is pure alcohol. They dropped sump'n on the fire, and it blowed the still up. It burnt 'em; I mean it burnt 'em awful. And one of 'em went over to old man Sam Walton to git him to take the fire out and the other one didn't go. And the fellow that went, I can show him right now, he was burnt when he went to the house. His whole face, all the way down him, he was nothin' but blisters. He had blisters hangin' on him that big. And he went to that old man. He never went to a doctor. He just went to him and in a few hours all them blisters were gone. Old man Walton took the fire out of Paul Garrison; Buzzy Shiflett was the other one that 'as burnt, and he didn't believe in it. He wouldn't go over there. And he like to died. It like to killed him. He had scars all over him where he burnt him. Paul Garrison ain't got a scar on him nowhere. I just knowed they had to die, the shape that they was burnt in. Me and Paul Garrison talked about that not long ago, how he didn't have a scar on him, and the other fellow had scars on him when he died. I think it was six months before he could put a shirt on anything. He'd just leave it open, you know. Put a little gauze on it. And I really don't believe when they come out from down there that he was burnt as bad as the fellow Paul Garrison.
Marvin Garrison's boy at Elmer when they lived down here, fell in a tub of hot water. He's just a kid and it burnt him up. They run him up there to my mother. She took the fire out. That boy ain't got a scar on him. And it don't leave a scar. You take a burn, you know, and it leaves a scar. I was tellin' somebody over there at the plant about takin' that fire out and they laughed at me, and I proved it by Paul Garrison. He said, "Yessiree, I had the meat burnt off of me." And he said, "I ain't got a scar." And he ain't got a scar on him nowhere.
My daddy used to have hemorrhages of the nose, and he started bleedin'. My mother told me, said, "Go up and ask Uncle Sam, tell him that your daddy's nose's bleedin' - what to do?" So I went up there and told him, and he said, "Well, go back down and tell him to go out to the woodpile and pick up a chip and let his nose bleed on it a little bit and just lay it down. Don't throw it down, just tell him to lay it down and go on back. It'll stop."
And I thought, "Now what in the world is goin' on?" I went back down and told him. That's what he done. In a few minutes his nose quit and he went on back doin' what he's doin'.
And it wasn't long after that his nose got to bleedin' agin. He told me to go up there and tell him. I went up there and told him, and he told me that time, "Tell him to go down to the closest branch. He's to put his hand in the water and put a little bit on the back of his head and go on and do what he's doin'." Said, "It'll quit." And it did. And he told my mother how to do that and how to take out the fire.
Well, I heard it's a verse in the Bible, a scripture verse. It's a scripture in the Bible. You say it. I don't know what it is. She could take warts off. These old seed warts, you know. And old man Sam Walton could, too. And old man Joe Blackwell's daddy up here, he used to take warts off. And my mother, she used to take 'em off, and if you'd tell anybody that she took it off, that wart'd come back. Old man Blackwell he told me to scratch it, scratch it, and make it bleed, and take a grain of corn and rub on it after it bled and git a chicken to eat it and it would go away. They left. Yea. I had 'em all over me and they all left.
Hobert Shiflett:
Well, fellow got bit up here on the mountain huckleberry time. Rattlesnake bit him. Copperhead and a rattler are the worst there is up in here. His leg got as black as tar. And the old lady said, "Git me a mattock." You know what a mattock is, like a hoe, you know. Dig a hole, put his leg in it, buried his leg, and poured water to it. That dirt drawed the poison out of it. Bennie Reed Shiflett. She saved him, I reckon. They said it helped. She put him down, then she kept this cold water to it. After she taken him up, she got leaves and kept bound to it and he stayed up there about two weeks.
Nora Herring Shiflett:
I've seen the old people make cough syrup out a honey. Mix it with brandy 'til it thicks it. Good for the whoopin' cough. And another thing they used to make -- an old lady back in the valley, Miss Lizzie Miller, used to make medicine out of blackberries for children that were teethin' to keep their stomach from gittin' upset with what you call diarrhea. She'd make it out of blackberries. She would boil this juice and then let it set and then re-boil it 'til a certain state and then you just use it like medicine for children. Blackberry medicine for teethin' children, she called it. She'd sell it to some people, and she'd give away a lot of it.
Well, they had a doctor, but he'd be at a distance. You know how far it is where Nortonsville's at? Well, Dr. Kiger come from over in the valley when he was a young man and put up a office there at Nortonsville. And then he married and then he moved away from there and he went to Free Union. That was Dr. Kiger's home when he died. And he would come on horseback all over these mountains. You can't imagine how far the man would go. 'Course there was paths and roads -- wagon roads we called 'em -- and he would go on horseback to the people back on the mountain. He used to come so far as he could in his car -- had a model T -- and then if it was too far to walk, people would meet him with a horse and take him to the home.
I remember a man once that was down -- he'd drink too much -- and he just said he couldn't git up and Pappa told him he could git him up. "I'll be up tonight and I'll git you up. I'll bring sump'n and git you up." My father had a barrel of sweet cider down in the granary. He went down and got a bottle full of it and went up thar. We went along just to see if Johnny would come up. Went in the room where he was in bed and Pappa rubbed him all over with the cider and in a few minutes he come out and said he felt like a new man.
Well, what you believe is 'bout what you are anyway.
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