Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-07-22
NO. 20.

Tue utChlOuD. lOuT RTh0QmOtn=
er, mamma says, was exactly like your moth
er, all faculty. energy, and thrift. She
would clean two rooms in a day-paint, win
dows and all-churn, get the dinner for a
great family Of men folks take care of Ter
children, and make pair of pantaloons be.
fore 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 overwrought mental and physical con-
dtion. Aunt Larkin, with less muscular
strength than her mother has emulated her
achievements and, half starved herself has
half starved her children, first, in their in
heritance, and second in their rearing"
"Allis, you are wild. Mother, and grand
mother before her made generous living
primal duty"
'Thats Just what say, child. Generous
living is sure to be semi-starvation. You have
had the finest Of bread, and delicious, fatal
light biscuit, and cake, and preserves, and
pastry, andinsidious hapjacks, and rich dough-
nuts, and incessant coffee, and salt fish fried
with pork scraps, and heavy boiled dishes
yelled in film of fat, and fresh meats fried,
and sausages, and spare-rib, tOuj0urs spare
rib. What has your brain found in this
Barmecide feast What food for your deli
cate, tense nervesp Do you think it any
wonder that they collapse, as it were, from
inanition twice month or SO? All your life
you have gorged yourself (pardon the express
sion, but am in a temper-professiona of
course) on hydro-carbonaoeous foods, impos-
ing monstrous tasks on your rebellious liver,
which strikes and spreads disaTection
throughout the ranks of its associates You
are starving for vital phosphates. Didn't you
study physiology at school Perhaps you
teach it, even, and what do you care for it's
sacred teachings? Yes mean sacred. There's
a religion of the body, let me tell you, unre-
generate boy. I've 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 ex-
pect wisdom to be born from yours You
use it without mercy sixteen hours a day.
You are subject to that fatal drain which stu
pidity is always making upon cleverness.
There's no vampire like it. You never play.
Why don't you swim, ride, dance, row, play
base ball, practice archery, whist, and go to
town every vacation for an instructive course
of theatres Z"
"when, AIlis? Why, there isn't time. 1
leave out half the work 1 ought to do as it
is"
"Ought ought Oh dear how shall we
stop the roll of that Juggernaut which crushes
all your race You have no pure Joy in ex-
istence. 1t doesn't even seem that you have
any love of life in itself. It's only useful for
the work you can wiring out of it, You make
yourself less than your moods and lenses, less
than your 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't reform.
know that the kind of headache which you
and Aunt Larkin are cursed with never comes
except with overwork and under feed ing.
She must go on to suffer, poor thing, though
less, hope But you can cure yourself if
you will Obey me, and you shall be a new
man in a year, giving me that delight in your
growing health which an artist feels in his
growing picture"
Dear Alls, 1 abhor bran, and mother
would never cook it."
"Dear simpleton, who asked you No, you
shall have delicious soups, and inviting meats,
and salads of celestial lineage, and vegetables,
and milk, and such bread as you have never
tasted, made of -four whose whole value has
not paid tribute to the miller"
"But Obadiahs Sarah"
"Oh yes, she can. I'll teach her. We can
do it all, and more, if you will only persuade
your mother that it is my lark, OF your whim,
or what you WILL so that we do not seem to
subvert the law of generations, or reproach
the old order with the new. Don't you see
what new creature she is, since have made
her rest ? And when she says, plaintively as
in her moments of rebellion she does The
house is not what it was Gf, peradventure,
Sarah has forgotten to set the salt box on the
right hand of the sugar crock, instead of the
left) reply, Never mind, dear Aunt Larkin,
the home is more. Did you ever see Nathan
so happy about you, as now that you tuck up
your feet and read in the afternoon, or go out
riding with meT And then she is silenced,
and takes another turn at The Maid of Sber
with visible satisfaction. Do you suppose
anything in life would make her so happy as
for you to escape your headaches? And l
have shown you the way"
"Having put myself in your hands, Doctor
Putnam, 1 am bound to follow your prescrip-
ton, 1 suppose. The preserves shall mould
upon their shelves, the cake box shall rust up
on tshinges, hapjacks from henceforth be call
ed edaccursed, and the majestic shades of Sylves-
ter Graham and Dio Lewis command my obe-
dience.
"'Slowly their phAntoms rise before us,
Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;
At bed and table they lord 1t DER
With looks Of beauty and words Of good."'
admirable, Master Nathan 1 can stay
two weeks longer to see my remedies in ac-
ton, and then you are to be on honor. At
the Thanksgiving vacation come to town, and
l will administer the course OF theatres
advised, and measure your improvement.
Tomorrow afternoon, if you please, we will
go to the top of that beautiful purple hill, up
which you have not had the civility to invite
me. AS young lady, and your guest
could not, of course, mention the omission;
but as your physician, and in a strictly reme-
dial manner, proceed to rectify it."
From that day a new king rose over Egypt
No sparkling brook hid itself SO cunningly
among the leaves that Nathan aud Allis did
not find it in the long summer afternoons,
when work was done. No hill was too diff
cult for their nimble feet, no berry patch too
far, no lily y-bearing pond too inaccessible
Sometimes Aunt Larkin joined them in their
frolic, wondering at herself for electing play
when work waited to be DONE feeling herself
apostate to the faith of her fathers, yet de-
lighting in the fun of these children, and re-
joicing to see her son 80 brown and hungry.
Then Doctor Allis had to say good-by, and
betake herself to town, evolving what she
called her ''ofice" from a confusion Of books,
pictures, flowers, patterns of wallpaper,
white muslin, ard the spoils Of her life
abroad. When Nathan saw it, in November,
his notions of the fitness of professional life
for women underwent further disintegration.
Nothing could be more refined" he said
to himself. my mothers house, even, does
not look half so feminine"
But if the canny Mrs. Putnam had expect
ed that her pretty and professional daughter
would establish herself in another vocation
when she sent her on missionary YlsH
among the Franklin hills, hers was hope de-
ferred For it was a year after this before
the correspondence, of which a specimen is
appended, enriched the Department.
HE TO HER.
"......So l have been offered the Professor
ship of the Classics at -- College. Will
you come too? would not ask you while
my lines were fixed at Franklin, wanting to
leave you free TO live your own life of books
and thought and work, which there you could
not do. At - the society is delightful, and
1 think you would be happy. II 1t is your
wish still to practice your profession, l have
no more right as trust have no more wish,
to object, than you would have concerning
mine And, indeed, hold that there is no
..n.,Id hnnn.nAl ma n limit