Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1891-11-05
HOT WEATHER NOTES.


HOT WEATHER NOTES.
4 Few Hints on How to Keep Cool with
the Mercury at 80.
plants of the excessive heat OF the
weather. Whenever people meet each
one relates the narrowing details of the
various phases of his suffering, and
when they separate no one feels cooler
for listening to the experiences, but
rather warmer. Each has lived over,
not only his own wretchedness, but his
neighbor's
Much tact and skill are needed by the
head of q family in safely guiding the
family chariot without a creak or a
breakdown during the reign of the
dog-star. The reign is not such long
one. but it is long enough to make it
wisdom to study how easiest to live
under it.
The family laws, which we regard
ordinarily as the laws of the Medes and
the Persians, must be held in abeyance
We must be bold enough to break
through routine We must not be shy
OF new ways. Discipline may have TO
be somewhat relaxed. Health and COM
fort. for q short time, must be con-
sidered before custom and appearance.
Many matters generally thought, and
rightly, of consequence must yield to
the grand end of keeping cool.
1t is not obligatory that there should
be every day hot dinner served with
the same number of dishes and the same
elaborate dessert. which would have
been appreciated six months ago. The
system does not demand such heavy
food and such a demand during hot
weather. Something lighter and cooler,
something costing far less trouble and
thought. as well as money, would be
more grateful to the already overhead
ed people who are expected to eat it 1t
is not even necessary that it should be
q dinner. A slight meal, tea or supper.
might be more appropriate and sufi-
ciently satisfying. Perhaps an entirely
different arrangement of meals, as to
time and kind, would be found better.
People, from habit and custom, usually
eat far too much. One might do with
fewer number of meals and obtain
advantage in health and comfort
It might be a good plan to rise two
hours sooner and get over the most tire
some and exhausting work in the cooler
morning hours, taking absolute rest
when the day is hottest. 1t might be
prudent to do violence to ones sense of
the eternal fitness of things so far as to
iron out in the hall or in the dining
room, or in any cool spot obtainable,
instead of the regular and proper place,
close beside the hot stove, while the
thermometer stands in the nineties. It
might even be best not to iron at all if
the day be too warm, but to let the
clothes cool off in the basket and the
irons cool off on freless stove until a
time when one felt equal to the task.
owe must allow ourselves a little extra
1eeway. It is good and praiseworthy
to do many things, but it is extraordi-
nary how many good thing we can
get along without doing and still live,
and live fairly happy and useful life,
too, if we can only make ourselves sat-
isfied not to do them
As to the spirit, we should try to
keep serene. But it is idle to speak of
this, for it is SO largely a matter of
temperament. Some people could not
keep cool with the thermometer at zero.
And some never get heated through,
much less reach the boiling point. 1t
is better not to worry about what we
can't help-n we can help it, And it is
surely better to defer crying over the
ruined dress and the broken china
pitcher until October. when it can be
lone more comfortably. Any plans. in
short, which conduce to our comfort or
the comfort of our families-although
such plans should upset all our theories
and change all the rules of the house
are good Indeed, yes Is not our life
more than meat or raiment? Let that
thought be put first, and make every
thing else fall into its rightful place
after. So shall our time be passed in
quiet and the heated term gone before
we have thoroughly realized it is here
or finished planning how to accelerate
its fight and soften its severity-N. Y.
World
[NOTE.-Tbese reflections are offered
at the present time as being of partic-
ular interest to an unusually large
number of our readers who are warmed
up over the result of the election in
this county.-ED. DEMoCRATl