Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-07-22
SICK HEADACHE.


AHygienic Love story.
Cocks had crowed and hens had cackled for
a full hour at least. This was world of
scratching, they said to themselves, and eggs
were not built in a day. Early to bed and
carly to rise makes fowls healthy and lively
and wise. The robins in the apple-trees, the
swallows in the barn, the little brown phdbes
that held town meetings in the meadow, had
been piping and trilling that it was day, day,
till they half expected to hear the noon bell
ringing. The shy quail in the hedge-row
had called their warning of shot and dry, hot
and dry" over and over, TO any ears that
would listen. The spiders had long since
hung out their gittering webs a-drying on
the wild-rose bushes. The bells of the morn
ing glory, blue and pink and purple, had
swung for hours outside the buttery window,
before the delinquent Aunt Larkin lifted the
latch and entered, not as her wont was
quickly as with desire, but on leaden feet of
dull resolve, and looking white as her own
linen.
There stood the row of milk-pails waiting
TO be emptied, to be washed, TO be spread in
the sun, already fierce and hot outside.
There was the long array of pans mantling
with yell1w cream. There, in the corner,
waited the exacting churn. the dasher leaning
toward her hand with what seemed malev-
olent readiness. As she took up the skinner
the kitchen clock struck six.
"0h, dear" sighed Aunt Larkin, morn
in lost, evenin' crossed
But when. with conscientious care, she had
stripped the third pan of its rich abundance,
she laid down her weapons, so to speak, and
capitulated to the one foe able TO conquer
that resolved soul.
"Thanny," she called, at the foot of the
stairs.
Eyes. mother" answered cheerful voice
from among the lilac bushes, and brown
curly head, set ON the slender shoulders of
young manhood, showed itself in the door
way. "Whst, another Of the evil brood
Go straight to bed mother. I'll go right
over for Obadiah's Sarah. And I'll make you
some tea, and manage my own breakfast.
Don't you worry about me. But you see |
was right, mother You must have a girl
Shall help you up stairs 2"
mo, dear. You just see to yourself The
coffee is ready, aud the breads in the stone
pot, and there's plenty of doughnuts, and a
currant pie, and dried beef, aud cheese in
the buttery and if you want to fry yourself
a piece of meat, there's the fat in the red jar,
and the veal's out in the spring house"
But though the mother-instiuct insisted on
thus making the way easy for its young, hu-
man nature shuddered at this catalogue and
poor Aunt Larkin staggered to her bed too
horribly i'll to speak again for hours. Sight
and sound were alike dreadful. The swift
jingle of the wooing bobolink swinging out
side in the golden ropes of the laburnum
pierced her sensitive ears like the steely clash
of swords. And the droning hum of bees,
plunging deep in the white sweetness of the
syringas was as the bray of a trombone.
Her heavy limits ached, to ache the more as
she tried to rest them in new positions. 1t
seemed to her that the deadly nausea was in
her feet in her arms in her spine-every-
where.
That the entrance of any human being,
even her beloved Thanny, would be unendur-
able, she knew. But oh, if some phantom,
some invisible, inaudble agency, would but
turn the swivel Of the blind, where ray of
abhorrible sunlight was already creeping in
How could she ever have let that bottle of
Bohemian glass stand on her bureau, even
though Thanny had given it her, filled with
cologne for her poor head Its vivid red
seemed to smite her through the cloud of
dull pain above her brows. And if she shut
her eyes, it did but glare the redder. Than
ny brought her the tea and it was vile. Pres
emily Obadiah's Sarah came creeping in with
demonstrative quietness, in shoes that creak-
ed and gown that cracked, to set down a
tnkling tray by the bedside. Aunt Larkin,
who would have mourned over lie as over
lost soul, had she been capable of telling one,
feigned sleep to dismiss that amiable vandal.
But when she opened her eyes and saw the
yellow butter, the deep blue plate, the brown
toast, the red milk pitcher, the black earthen
tea pot, she felt that sex alone, not gratitude
nor Christian grace, bridled her tongue from
profane and vain babbling.
Meantime, Nature, who did not include
sick headache, or any other mortal malady,
in her scheme of existence, went about her
usual business. The sun mounted higher
and higher, cattle browsed, sheep fattened,
buds blossomed, crops grew. Among these
the plantage at the village academy flourish
ed apace. Here lay the daily toll of Mr.. Ma
than Larkin, assistant principal, a sensitive,
conscientious fellow, of indomitable will, low
ing work, and toiling to kindle in duller
brains and lighter natures his own enthusi-
asm and his own resolve. The Rev. Edward
Granniss, BID, LID, principal of the Qua
boag seminary, being gentleman of phleg-
matte temperament, much addicted to heavy
dinners at MONDAY, was quite willing to let
his esteemed young friend do most of the
pulling of the double team. especially through
the hard places, though simply for his own
improvement, of course.
Thus the youth, taking no rest, spending
of his intense personality with prodigal read
iness inheriting from his mother a set of
tehbS dhu hNht-ASSPOhuihB hSANoot Aouhu
himself beset, once fortnight or 50, by the
same fend, sick headache, which had devas-
tated years of her useful life. He was young
and heroic. Sometimes he could Rrapple
with it, hold II still, and, thus hampered go
through the routine of mis- work, after dull
fashion. Sometimes he yielded, undergoing
tortures greater than his mothers, as his i'm
agination was more vivid. But, either way,
he counted month out of each year an un-
redeemed sacrifice to this MOloch.
On this summer day he felt wonderfully
alert and alive. The boys thought he made
Caesar aud the Anabasis almost interesting,
with his vivid sketch of the splendid life of
the republic, and his showing up of hot
headed Cyrus, and cool, cruel, able Artaxerx-
es, "long- -memoried" for his wrongs But in
secret he was much disquieted. For Miss Al
lis Putnam was TO come that afternoon, and
he felt that his poor mother would IVORY"
more than was needful, Not that he had not
his own misgivings. A strong minded young
woman who had graduated first in her class