The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-08-24

how your health could be any better
You are as strong as an OK and if yol
| would only let these fads alone yol
might live to be three hundred year.
old instead of one hundred. Wha
makes you let men stuff you with such
| ideas?"
Mr.. Bowser had kept his eyes on heI
as she spoke. His face had flushed
from red to white and back again hall
a dozen times.
stuff me? Stuff Bowser," he al
most yelled when she had finished
I Mrs. Bowser, the man does not live
| who can stuff me. He never has lived
! and never will To hear you talk, one
who didn't know enough to get out of
the way of a street car. Discussion is
useless. however. You are never in
sympathy with any of my ideas. 1 will
go my way about this matter and you
can go yours. Stuff mel Stuff mel
That ended it. Mr.. Bowser was dy-
ing for a smoke, but ne couldn't go
back on his ancestors. When they
hankered for anything they went out
and dug roots After he had wandered
hour he went over to the drug store
and asked for some licorice root
What's up now?" queried the
druggist.
i've stopped smoking"
"Glad to hear it, I've thought for
the last year that your brain is more
or less affected
If there hadn't been couple of lad
les in the store Mr.. Bowser would have
called the druggist a liar AS it was
he had to bottle up his wrath. He
hadn't gone ten feet from the door
when he met his family butcher and
halted him to say:
Smith. didn't the ancfents used to
eat their meat raw before they found
a way to cook ftp"
ct guess they did,
And wasn't that why they were so
strong and healthy"
II presume it was. Shall send you
over a neck-piece from an old bull to
chew on? After devouring it YOU NAV
be able to pull up 4 telegraph pole"
Mr.. Bowser got home mad, but he
concealed his feelings from Mrs. Bow
ser and chewed away at his supply of
upstairs and took a quilt off his bed
and passed out into the back yard
without a word to her. The dewy
grass awaited him. but there were cats
around and the night was dark, as he
felt himself wishing that his ancestors
had slept on hair mattresses AS he
lay down and stretched out and the
dew OF Heaven glistened on his bald
pate his vitals yearnef for fried Mary
land chicken and corn fritters. He
thought of coffee and chocolate. He
knew that his ancestors had none of
those things. and he began to have a
contempt for them
The professor hadn't asked to bor-
row five dollars of him, and he had
told Mrs. Bowser no lie. It was ten
that the man got. and the lender now
wished he had 1t back Mr.. Bowser
had about made up his mind to change
back and eat a hearty breakfast in the
morning when he fell asleep. He
didn't get to sleep as soon as one of his
ancestors would have done, but he
did well for the first time. He had
slept and dreamed and hungered and
hankered for an hour when there was
a flash of lightning, peal of thunder
and the rain descended in a perfect
cloudburst. Three minutes later a
limp and bedraggled form entered the
family bedroom where Mrs. Bowser
sat reading and waiting
Our ancestors laid out in the rain
and got soaked, and that toughened
them" she remarked.
- our ancestorsi" was his vigor-
Gus reply as he began to peel off his
wet garm to get into bed-(Copy-
righted. 1907. by Homer Sprague)