The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1900-06-14
BILL ARPS' LETTER
William Had Heart Trouble and
Thought His Time Had Come.
TOOK MORPHINE, DREAMED DREAMS
In HaIlucination He Quotes JinqIine
Poetry-Says He Will Survive the
Wreck of Matter and the Crash
of Worlds.

II anyone else was concerned
would not write this sick letter, but
it may benefit others who are similar
ly affected. l have been a very sick
man and hardly expected to see my
next birthday, but | have scuffied
through and am now on the upgrade.
One Of my PARKWAY boys wired to
me to work on my stomach and
would get well He might as well
have wired: Keep on living and you
will keep living on"
No, it wasn't my stomach. 1t was
higher up, where the left ventricle of
the heart had got walled in and the
trouble was what the doctor calls the
angina pectoris, and my left arm was
! helpless. For two days and nights |
suffered more real agony than | ever
| suffered in all my life. Our doctor boy
was here from Florida, and knew ex-
| actly what was the matter, and l took
| all his medicine, but got little relief,
| and l was willing to die to get out Of
pain. Finally he gave me morphine
| in both arms and l went off to sleep
and rest. Those morphine dreams
and visions are always a miracle to
me. l thought that in his talk about
my trouble he called it angelina pee
toris, for l don't hear well now, and
| got the refrain on my mind, that
pretty verse from Goldsmith's Her
nit"
Turn, Angelina-ever dear
My charmer turn to see,
Thine own, thine long-lost William
here,
Restored to heaven and thee"
Ever and anon | could hear it rain
ing on the tin roof, but it didn't rain
drop. All night long l was mumur-
ing, Turn, Angelina, dear" l couldn't
stop it, nor think of anything else to
say, but l wasn't restored-next day
| got some better, and as l hadn't
taken any nourishment for three or
four days l craved something acid, and
like foolish boy eat a small piece of
huckleberry pie for supper, which they
told me not to do. That set the dogs
to barking about midnight and set
me back just where l had been, and
the doctors work all had to be done
over again. Emetics and hot baths
and hot water bags and more NOR
phine finally brought relief. That
night after supper the young people
had the dining room table cleared off
and were playing that pretty little
childish game called ping pong or
ding dong or Hong Kong, or some cut
landish name with its tinkling balls,
and so | got another refrain and was
murmuring ping pong. ding dong and
ding dong bell all night. One of my
boys, who is always punning, told his
mother that huck.eberry pie business
was simply a case of too much pie
eaty, and they tried to make me
smile, but they couldn't. l was past
all wit and humor and puns and jokes.
But l am done with huckleberry pie
and huckleberry cordial and Huckle-
berry Finn and any other huckleberry.
Only last Saturday my only brother
died suddenly of heart failure away off !
from home. His time was not out, |
for he was nearly twenty years young
er than | am, and now, a.as, | have |
no brother, and he was always a good |
brother to me. But almost everybody |
is threatened with heart failure now,
and so | am looking out for it, but |
don't want it to come along the Ange- |
lima line. The heart IS the most won
derful and mysterious organ of our |
anatomy. 1t is called the seat of af-
lection. the desires and the emotions. |
The organ of love and hate and Joy, |
but it is not. 1t is mentioned in the |
Bible more than six hundred times, |
and always in connection with our |
good or bad traits, but it has nothing |
to do with feeling or emotion or
1t is nothing but a fleshy |
pulpy organism, mechanical contriv-
ance, and has to be carefully nursed |
or it will rebel, 1t is the engine that !
drives the whole anatomical machine
If overWorked, or overfed with ice or
tobacco or anything else it will work
on faithfully until it can't work any
longer, and then gets discouraged and
dies suddenly at its post. The book
says that but little was known to med
ical science concerning the heart until |
the eighteenth century and that with
in the last fifty years many books have
been written, and now no part of the
human system is better understood
or more satisfactorily treated. The
disease called angina pectoris is de-
clared to be the most dangerous to
which it is subject because of it's dis
tressing pain and sense of impend-
ing death. If l had read that while l
was suffering l should have surren-
dered, but the doctor wouldn't tell me
nor let me read it. He says it is better
to minify rather than to magnify the
apprehensions of his patients But |
h.. !.