St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-07-22
VOLUME 44---NUMBER 2295.


palsy of the will. 1t was fever, with
out the blessed intervals of uncon-
sciOusness. 1t was the rack, the
thumb-screw, the iron boot. If the
faint STRINGS of desire might he called
hope, he hoped his mother would not
prescribe magnesia, or bring him the
dreaded ''cup o tea"
By-and-by came DR.. Allis, with
nOiseless presence, cool hands, low
voice, and potent prescription. As the
slow hours dragged on, the headache
yielded grudgingly, irresolutely, with
spasms of re-asserting power. Next
day Nathan was free from pain, but
tired and Respondent. Sitting in the
cool dusk of the honeysucklcs, he said,
''rd give a third of my life, Allis, to
buy off these headaches from the rest
of it. Sometimes | think they will
shut me out from any career whatever.
Can't you cure them, little Galen ?"
"No, Herr Professor, not while you
invite them, solicit them, compel
them"
81, Allis l don't give them an inch
of vantage. | rise early, go to bed
early, don't even smoke, and fight
them to the death when they come"
Nathan, l should like to talk to
you for your good, though you'll hate
me for it. You've half forgotten that
am Il female doctor, and as a person ]
am less Objectionable than you feared.
'Twere pity of my life to disturb this
state of amity. But at heart Pm pro-
fessiOnal above all things, and you see
| can't advise your mother lest | seem
disrcspectful.n
clay on, Macduff' l dare say
sha'n't know when Pm hit. And if
do feel 'thc Whit and wind of your fell
sword | won't whimper."
Nathan, do you know that your
mother killed those six children whose
little graves she showed me to-day ~
"Allis!"
eyes although she would have died
for any one of them. And but that
you were tougher fibered, as well as
finer fibered, than the rest, you would
have completed the hecatOmb. Your
grandmother, mamma says, was exact
ly like your mother, all faculty. ener-
gy and thrift. She would clean two
rooms in a day-paint, windows, and
all churn, get the dinner for great
family of men folks take care of her
children, and make Il pair of panta
looms before bedtime. OF course she
was 'wOrryin',' with all her nerves on
the surface, and of course she had to
bequeath to her girls this same over
wrought mental and physical cOndi-
ton. Aunt Larkin, with less muscular
strength than her mother, has emula-
ted her achievements, and, half starved
herself, has half-starved her children,
first, in their inheritance, and second,
in their rearing
"Allis, you are wild. Mother, and
grandmother before her, made generous
living primal duty"
"That's just what say, child. Gen
erous living is sure to be semi-starva-
ton. You have had the finest of
bread, and delicious, fatal light bis
cult and cake and preserves and pas
try, and insidiOus tiapiacks, and rich
dOughnuts, and incessant coffee, and
salt fish fried with pork scraps, and
heavy boiled dishes veiled i'll n film of
| fat, and fresh meats fried, and sausa
ges, and spare-rib, spare-rib, tOWOurS
spare-rib. What has your brain found
in this Barmecide feast What food
for your delicate, tense nerves? Do
you think it any wonder that they col
lapse, as it were, from inanition twice a
month or so? All your life you have
gorged yourself (pardOn the expression,
but | am i'll temper-prOtcsSlona OF
course) on hydrOcarbonaccOus foods,
imposing mOnstrous tasks on your re-
bellious liver, which STRIKES and
spreads the disaifection throughout the
ranks of its associates. You are starry
ing for vital phosphates. Didn't you
study physiology at school Perhaps
you teach it, even, and what do you
care for its sacred teachings Yes,
mean sacred. There's a religion of the
body, let me tell you, unregenerate
boy. Fve no doubt yOu render into
beautiful English that story of Marsyas
and Apollo, and what do you know or
care about your own skin, that texture
of miraculous skill You read that
Minerva sprang from the brain of Jove.
But why should yOu expect wisdom to
be born from yours YOu use it with
out mercy sixteen hours Il day. You
are subject to that fatal drain which
stupidity is always making upon clev-
erness. There's no vampire like it.
You never play. Why don't you swim
ride, dance, row, play baseball, prac-
tice archery, whist, and go to town
every vacation for an instructive
course of theaters ?"
"When, Allis Why, there isn't
: time. | leave out half the work
ought to do as it is
"Ought! ought. Oh dear! how shal
we stop the roll of that Juggcrnaut
which crushcs all your race You
! 4
doesn't even seem that you have any
love of life in itself. It's only uscfu
for the work you can wiring out of it
! You make yourself less than you
butter and cheese. Time! If there
isn't time to get well and keep well
, you'd better change for eternity, as yOu
will, my dear young friend, if you don
} reform. l know that the kind of head
ache which yOu and Aunt Larkin arr
cursed with never comes except will
r overwork and dunderfeeding. She mus
2 90 on to suffer, poor thing, though less
= | hope. But You can cure yourself j
: you will. Obey me, and you shall be ;
+ new man in Il year, giving me that de
- light III your growing health which al
= artist feels in his growing picture"
, ''Dear Allis, abhOr bran, and moth
4 er would never cook it."
e ''Dear simpleton, who asked you
4 No, you shall have delicious soups, AM
= inviting meats, and salads of celestia
r lineage and vegetables, and milk, ant
= such bread as you have never tasted
d made of flour whose whole value ha
Il not paid tribute to the Miller
! "But Obadiah's Sarah
t "Oh yes, she can. I'll teach her
Il We can do it all, and more, if only yo
# will persuade your mother that it i