221

A. Varesano interviewing Joe Sulkusky and Mrs. Sulkusky
- 3 -
Tape 30-2

092
They're still down there, that's all empty around down [?] there. And that
comes down off the hill right there, that water, too, but it's all good water,
that water, God Almighty, you could be a rich man.

MS: See, there is Joey Chernigy's brother died, and....

AV: Yeah.

MS: Did he tell you about it?

AV: Yeah, he told me.

MS: I seen they were goin' afternoon to the wake.

JS: I knowed all them homes down through there in Number Seven. There were some
up on the upper side, there was a double home there, and there's a spring---
that's where the Indian doctor, when he used to come up here, he used to make
his medicine there.

AV: Up there, by the spring?

JS: Yeah, Number Seven spring. He tried the other springs, and he tried that one,
and he says this is the one.

AV: What did he used to do?

JS: Make medicine. And you'd see, you'd walk over and, he had a little thing like
a little jabber, you know, and he'd dig a little bit and he'd pull a root out
of the ground, some kind of root, he come over by the spring, and he'd sit
down and he'd start to make medicine out of that root. Then he'd go and get
a different one, he'd make different things. We used to go down with him,
you know, we used to follow him down, you know. He wanted our company,
because he used to like when we'd go down with him. He'd be talking with us
and all, and sayin', Now, he says, I'm gonna make a medicine for a cold, you
know, or something. And, he said, don't be afraid to take it, he said. He
would taste it himself first, you know. And he would make medicine from some
kind of a damn root he'd take out of the ground. And he'd rub your forehead
like this if you had a headache. And in two minutes you had the headache no
more. Forget about it, that quick. Yeah, that's true about the medicines he
used to make. Then he used to make different things, salves and
different kinds of medicine. He was tellin' the people down here about the
clubhouse, that house up above and then that down down about Annie's there.
That store down, Cushner's, was there. Well, he used to stay in Cushner's,
and he had a bird dog. And that bird dog could walk a rope from one house
across the road into the other house. They'd open the windows and put a
rope in there, and a rope in Cushner's, and he used to go, walk that rope
through! A bird dog!

AV: Wow!

JS: And that was nice to see him, how nice he go. You had to watch because he
ain't got claws like a cat or something, you know that could stick right on.
And he was pretty good.

AV: Oh boy!

JS: Yes!

MS: I see where Mrs. Gaffney is in the hospital.

AV: Yeah. Oh. That's too bad about that. I don't know.

MS: Anything serious, or just like that for a checkup.

AV: I don't know.

MS: I thought that maybe you went out there, [?], that maybe you know'd about it.

AV: Tell me about how you found the Hoop Snake in the woods.

JS: Hoop Snake? Well, you don't see none now. She seen one yesterday....

MS: In our yard, the other day.

JS: In our yard, the big black one. She said, I just walked down the back, down
there [?], then he crossed over here, she said. I don't know, did he go in