Page:Weird Tales Volume 35 Issue 04 (1940-07).djvu/7
"I came upon the gourd bottle and did what only a young fool would do: I sampled it."
I had an uncle who was also a drifter. He had been in South America, and turned up one fine day with a trunk full of junk, a lot of wild stories, and a cough that killed him two months later.
He had brought from Ecuador two tiny, shrunken human heads, the size of a billiard ball. He sent these off to a museum and the money helped to bury him. Among other things he had a bottle made from a gourd and filled with liquid, which he said was a sacred drink used by the Indians in Ecuador to produce dreams. He expected to make money out of it, but died before he could get anjrwhere with his schemes.
After his death I was going through his effects, hoping to find sometliing that we might sell, for we had bitter need of money.
I came on the gourd bottle and did what only a young fool would do: I sampled it. Pouring out some of the stuff I tasted it. As it seemed harmless and I was curious to see what dreams it would produce, I swallowed the whole dose.
It burned like fire. I became rapidly drowsy, and frightfully scared. I stumbled downstairs, told the folks what I had done, yelled that I was poisoned, and then keeled over, dead to the world.