The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-08-07
The Chiidren's Cough.
The children have 1t and the Result i'm
the Family.

The Children have 1t and the Result i'm
the Family.
When our children came down with
the &hooping cough the other day, says
a correspondent, wife and 1 did not
mind it much at first. But 1 am salts
fed now that the whooping-cough is no
joke. Wife asked Mrs. Higginson, a
dear old disciple of catnip tea and bone
set, what was good for the whooping
cough?
"Children got it ?" she inquired.
" Terribly" replied Mrs. L..
"Deaf little hearts p calculated the
kind lady, "They couldn't have it in
better time. Jes let 'em have little
lickrish to eat, and they'll get over it
lovely"
This made wife and me glad. Three
weeks of the best time to have whoop-
ing-cough in have gone by and our little
ones are still wrestling with the disease.
We comfort ourselves with the belief
that the "good time" can't last much
longer, and that little Johnny, who has
got it the worst, is certainly going to
"get over it lovely" For a fortnight
wife and have not slept wink. 1t is
not q trifling task to take good care of
seven children when they are all afflict-
ed simultaneously with the whooping-
cough. They will kick the clothes off.
The thought has come over me with
singular force frequently during tee last
fortnight, as / have stumbled around to
the various cribs in the nighttime with
a bottle of ipecac in one hand and
glass of ice-water in the other, that, in
hn 10 ~ tl,a
a wilderness" vale of tears, as it were.
My shins are beautifully variegated in
blue, purple, and yellow tints, accord
ing to the date of the bruise. l notice
that jams on the shin follow a regular
law. When you first fall over the chair
the place looks red and irritated then
it changes to dark azure by Wednes-
day little purple begins to be mixed
in around the edges and finally it as
sumes an affros tinge. watched the
development of this law with much in
terest till the bruises got too much con-
fused to date them accurately. My east
shin now bears striking resemblance
to an old map of the United States, with
the Chicago fire, "showing the burned
district" just below the knee, and the
Boston fire little lower down. The
most discouraging thing, though, about
a tour through the whooping-cough-
that is, when it's a "good time to have
it's the Joy with which all your
friends seem to be inspired when you
tell them, with haggard look, that all
your children are down with it. Mine
is heart that naturally Graves sympa-
thy. 1 yearn for it. But not since my
W. irb L
been congratulated SO much as have
since my seven children took the
whooping-cough. Every time go home
to my dinner L tell Samantha of some
good friend whom have met, and who
says "there never was better time to
have the whooping-cough." Samantha
sheds sickly smile, strangles little,
and tries to look encouraged. Just
about this time Johnnie explodes, grabs
his little waistband, all the rest set up
whoop, and for a moment my usually
quiet home reminds one of a Modoc
stronghold. The grandmother, "Aunt
Jane, wife, and go back to the table
and talk it over, and wife says, Good
ness knows, I'm glad the little dears
didn't catch it at any other season."
And so struggle on from day to day,
the constant recipient of hearty con
gratulations that my children are so
fortunate as to have the whooping-
cough at this season of the year. Some
times L think to myself that few people
are blessed with so many dear children
and so much seasonable whooping-
cough. And yet am convinced that if
the number of children in my family
had been less the whooping-c cough
might have got the best of us, even in
this dear, delightfully."- opportune
whooping-cough time.