The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-12-17
Cure for Blues.

IlOhkbb JGunb Oub dLuOuSSb ncI hlu
would brighten her up little and make
her feel better.
She has dyspepsia, and is low spirited,
and sunken-eyed, and nearly all her
conversation is about murders, and
burglars, and robbers, and people falling
out of front windows. and from scaffold-
ings. At night, all the curtains have to
be drawn, and the blinds closed, and the
door bolted, and the lights turned half
down, and after we go to bed we are be-
sought to peep round under things and
''see if there isn't a man hidden some
where.n
She wants US to talk in whispers, and
when we laugh to put our heads down
under the blankets, or press the pillows
over our mouths.
Now, the girls and I always do our
visiting at the table and after We go to
bed, and sometimes we grow so bolster
Gus that the deacon has to rap his
knuckles on the wall, intimating, "less
noise" But then he's always had to do
that, ever since he had family.
Time was, when the laughter would
burst out, and he would have to take a
stick of kindling-timber and cudgel the
bed-clothes that covered us. We would
all howl out, "Oh, papa rll never dot
y
to make him think he was killing US, and
then the laugh would burst out again by
the time he was snugly in bed.
Some mornings when we ask Becky
how she feels, she will say, "AIy head
aches bitterly ~ or, "Are you sure the
blinds were all closed and fastened on
the inside; I thought heard some one
at the shutters about midnight"
She will frequently grOan out in a
strong, full voice, coming upon us as
suddenly as a Handicapped in a calm,
midsummer day.
Some days she will sit and sigh with
her eyebrows raised and her mouth
drawn down at the corners, and her
thin, transparent ears sticking out like
handles on a cream crock. She will say
then that she has the "blues most dret-
fully" and she will say it looking us
right in the eyes, and not bit ashamed.
Now think that any woman ought to
be ashamed to own that she has them,
because they are the result of one or
more of natures laws violated, and the
confession brands one as a coward, a
gluttOn, or grossly Incorporate. For a
woman, especially, this seems coarse,
unwomanly, out of place.
Blues and headache are the horned
bug-bears that stand squarely in Becky's
path, and instead of meeting them
bravely, she quails before them.
Now, honestly, the right name for
these triple foes to which she succumbs
is digestion-not half so pretty, or in
teresting, or romantic as blues and head
ache. That's just it She violates a
half-dOzen of natures prime laws, and
then goes whining about over low spir-
its and uncongeniality, and the deceit
fulness of the world, and the stubborn
blindness of people everywhere, and un-
appreciative friends, and all the time I
believe the secret lies in her two cups of
strong coffee, or the hearty dinner of
boiled pot-pie that might have been
so much boiled cloth or leather.
One who does not work at real labor,
demanding muscular exercise, cannot
with impunity eat a very hearty meal
of strong food and not have an interest
ing headache, or a poetical spasm of the
blues.
If one drops down on fiowery beds of
ease, she must not be surprised to feel
the pricking of an occasional thorn
Nature cannot work well with any of
her wheels locked.
The best preventive I ever found for
the blues was to have my mind at
work cheerfully, entirely, my heart full
of hopeful thoughts, and my hands, and
head, and feet, busy and moving.
Have the whole machinery a-going,
and you may snap your fingers disdain-
fully at the first blue that peeps.
Have you nothing to work at?
Interest yourself in the case of a poor
theological student striving to acquire
an education. God knows the whole
world is sprinkled over with them
-foa
clothes, denying Themselves half the
comforts we enjoy, calling them luxu-
ries, and trying to think they can starve
and suffer along without them.
That is the kind of men who are often
In colleges and seminaries in want of
clothes and money, fighting their way,
inch by inch, and, too often in spite of
their strongest efforts, growing bitter
and misanthropic. This is a field to
which one may direct energies that are
rusting with the blues, energies that il
rightfully directed could be wrought
into a strong and beautiful and exalted
power.
Another good work for one who has
the blues, is to collect money enough to
buy sewing machine for poor widow,
dependent on her own exertions for the
support of her family.
Ihen, there are poor children to be
clothed, and wood-piles to be made be-
fore lowly doors, where none are now,
and poor women to be instructed in the
knack of managing and planning; there
is more charity in that sometimes than
in merely giving; then there's a weak
brother, who can't stand the color of the
wine in the cup without tasting it; he
needs an encouraging word and a pat oi
congratulatlon on the shoulder.
And when you do talk temperance to
a man, some things are to be avoided;
don't say 'T-In and "you-you," with
your hands folded or your thumbs stick
ing in the arm scyes of your vest; say
'aOe," and "my dear friend" and "my
poor brother"
have been told by reclaimed inebri-
ates that when a man came to talk tenn.
perance and reform, it only exasperated
them TO see him stand up high and dry
and free from the vice, and say you in.
stead of that sweet, tender plural aOe anC
as.
A poor man with the ban and the
curse upon him needs to be approached
carefully and kindly, and after the man.
ner in which our Savior dealt with the
erring. He must not be made to fee
that there is an impossible gulf between
them, or barrier that is insurmounta
BILE; the secret lies in putting oneself OIL
a level with him, in remembering all
the time that If is Onlv tbrOu0b Godis