Late one evening Zeke and Doc were called to a farm house not to far from town. The person who came and got them was a mere lad of about nine. He said his mother had fallen coming back from the barn in the darkness after milking and had banged her head and face. When Zeke and Doc got there it was fairly obvious the lady had been badly beaten. Zeke noticed the husband laying on the sofa snoring loudly with an empty whiskey bottle laying on the floor. Doc treated the lady and they left.

In the early morning hours the lad was again beating on Doc’s door. On the ride back in the buckboard, the young man told of some mysterious way the family outhouse had been moved back from the hole about four feet. When the drunken husband went out to take care of a nature calling he had fallen into about four years of family leavings. It was about all Doc and Zeke could do to keep a straight face.

When they arrived at the farm house the cussing and belligerent man was setting on the ground with the younger children of the family bringing water from the well to rinse him off. Doc looked him over, from a distance of course. He then asked Zeke to hold the lantern while he mixed up some medication, a mixture of one half castor oil and one half strong laxative. Doc instructed the man to make sure he took it all or he could get real sick.