Under the powerful influence of the near treatment and the absent treatment together, my bones were gradually retreating inward and disappearing from view.

The good work took a brisk start, now, and went on swiftly.

My body was diligently straining and stretching, this way and that, to accommodate the processes of restoration, and every minute or two I heard a dull click inside and knew that the two ends of a fracture had been successfully joined.

This muffled clicking and gritting and grinding and rasping continued during the next three hours, and then stopped--the connections had all been made.

All except dislocations; there were only seven of these: hips, shoulders, knees, neck; so that was soon over; one after another they slipped into their sockets with a sound like pulling a distant cork, and I jumped up as good as new, as to framework, and sent for the horse-doctor.
I was obliged to do this because I had a stomach-ache and a cold in the head, and I was not willing to trust these things any longer in the hands of a woman whom I did not know, and whose ability to successfully treat mere disease I had lost all confidence.