Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-07-21
SIGNS OF MIDDLE-AGE

..And still another reason way I can
plainly see that no longer belong to the
youngster Glass; observed the man verg-
ing upon forty, lis the way ! am treated
by things / eat. It was only a little while
ago, you'll remember, that remarked how
Ia been observing that the youngish chaps
of my acquaintance had got into the way
of calling me sir when addressing me.
That gave me queer sort of shock. l
couldn't quite understand 1t at drst, but
then it gradually came to me, and with a
dismal sort Of accompanying feeling, that
I'd got into the sir class-that these young
ish fellows considered, as they surely had
a right to consider. that I was SO much
older than they that the sir was coming
to me.
And recently I've been rejecting upon
what q difference there IS nowadays In
the way l have to conduct myself with
respect to food and the careless. II not
wholly Indifferent, way l used to treat
that subject.
Man, but I never used to know that I
had a stomach. Straight fact. I'd just
eat any old thing at any old time OF the
day night, and it was all right. No
bother; no discomfort; no thought OF lndi-
gestion or dyspepsia Just ate the stun
o. wonder what the old fogies. as then
considered them, really meant when they
fell to talking about the danger of eating
this that thing. Couldn't figure out
why folks shouldn't eat everything they
wanted to, just as 1 did. Ia hear EN-
talking about dyspepsia tablets, and I was
of the firm opinion that such folks must
sure be OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES they must be
imagining all sorts OF ailments were the
matter with them as the result of eating
certain kinds of food.
Say, let me breathe it gently, so that my
digestive apparatus won't oyerhear me and
icl, for f7<arf m Omit RI
know there was time when / could eat
four big slabs of Welsh rarebit just be-
fore turning in of a night and then go off
to sleep like pickaninny in a crib and
wake up in the morning With never the
sign of furry tongue and feel like fight
ing top l had my bath and dressed, and
then go right down stairs and put away
a big breakfast of sausage and buckwheat
cakes and three or four cups of coffee?
Dye know that? It's honest-I mean
every word of it. But now! Gentlemen,
hush Why, I'd just go and make ar
engagements for a lot in the cemetery be-
fore I'd do anything of that kind now, 1
sure would! I'd know for a certainty that
ID nudge myself right straight to the
grave if / tackled even onehalf of such
proposition.
''Cucumbers? Say-whisper again-dye
know what l used to be able to do before
l came to the grisly and disheartening
knowledge that | really possessed stom-
ach? l used to be able to just eat cucum-
bers hot from the field, without salt or
pepper or vinegar! Just peel EN- with a
knife and dip EN- into bucket of well
water and gobble 'em up like somebody
eating apples-ye-eh, for a factl And If l
eat about four thin slices OF cucumbers
nowadays I've got trouble on my hands.
Cheese? 1 was the craziest idiot over
cheese-nippy American cheese-you ever
saw or heard of. l used to often go out
at night and buy myself q POUND of nippy
cheese and sit down and eat 1t without
anything else to go with it. And then I'd
turn in and slunlber like a lumberjack
after log drive and never be bothered in
the least. Now, If 1 eat SO much as the
bit of cheese that's served with a piece
of apple pie I'm got to stand by for trouble.
Sometimes / can get by with that little
piece of cheese and then again most often
sometimes l can't, and there you And.
talking about pie, l used to be the main
pie-face l verify believe, of the whole civ
ilized world. l hate to say it out loud for
fear of arousing my at present unresentful
digestive machinery TO retroactive wrath,
but there was time when L d finish a half
OF three-quarters of big. red-hot mince
pie at any old hour of the day or night
and never think of it afterward. except to
marvel how good it had tasted and to wish
for some more just like it! IL / were to
take two square inches of hot mince pie
now l might be able to stink by with it
and l might not, but I'm not taking any
chances on the not and so l only go
against the mince pie gamble about twice
during the open season for mince.
Same way with everything in the food
| lfne-got to watch whole lot of things
and flag plenty of eatables that 1 enjoy
merely because L know that they're not for
me. I'm not dyspeptic, strictly so-called,
at that. I'm just advancing along toward
middle age dog-gone me, and there are a
whole lot of measley, no-account little re-
mnders of that fact, like those I've men
toned to you, looming up in front of me at
every turn Of the road!''