How terribly lonesome I feel!  How queer,
To be sitting alone, with nobody near,
Oh, how I wish Maria was here,
Mon dieu! 
The thought of it fills me with horrible doubt,
I should smile, I should blush, I should wail,
I should shout,
Just suppose some fellow has cut me out! 
Me out!

And underneath the lesson is given: 

Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills
The Best Family Pill in use

[Illustration:  FIGURE 20.—­A trade card advertising Kingsland’s Chlorinated Tablets, which closely resembled a railroad pass.]

Testimonials submitted voluntarily by happy users of the pills were always widely featured in the almanacs, newspaper advertisements, and handbills.  Although the easy concoction of the stories about Dr. Morse and Dr. Cunard might suggest that there would have been no hesitation in fabricating these testimonials, it is probable that they were genuine; at least, many have survived in the letters scattered over the floor of the Indian Root Pill factory.  In some cases one might feel that the testimonials were lacking in entire good faith, for many of them were submitted by dealers desiring lenient credit or other favors.  Witness, for example, the following from B. Mollohan of Mt.  Pleasant, Webster County, West Va., on April 16, 1879: 

Pleas find here enclosed Two Dollars & 50 cts $2 50 cts for which pleas place to my credit and return receipt to me for same.  I cant praise your Dr Morse pill two high never before in all my recolection has there bin a meddison here that has given such general satisfaction.  I hope the pills will always retain their high standing and never bee counterfeited....  I could sell any amt Pills allmost if money was not so scarce.  I have to let some out on credit to the Sick and Poor & wait some time though I am accountable to you for all I recd & will pay you as fast as I sell & collect ...  I have about one Doz Box on hand.

Mollohan’s complaint about the shortage of money and the long delay in collecting many accounts reflected a condition that prevailed throughout the nineteenth century.  Money was scarce, and the economy of many rural communities was still based largely on the barter system, so that it was very difficult for farmers to generate cash for store goods.  Consequently, country storekeepers had to be generous in extending credit, and, in turn, manufacturers and jobbers had to be lenient in enforcing collection.

Not all of the storekeepers could write as neatly and clearly as Mollohan.  The following letter, quoted in full, from Thomas Cathey of Enfield, Illinois, on January 23, 1880, not merely presented a problem relating to the company’s policy of awarding exclusive territories but offered considerable difficulty in deciphering: