The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1914-12-05


use again and again, no matter how
varied the theme or setting OF our
Your surgeon, tossing
uneasily on his bed, sees himself cut
ting to remove an appendix, only TO
discover that that unpopular portion
of his patients anatomy already hobs
in alcoholic glee in bottle on the top
shelf of the laboratory of a more alert
professional brother. Your civil en-
gineer constructs imaginary bridges
which slump and fall as quickly as they
are completed. Your stage favorite,
in the throes of post-lobster night
mare, has a horrid vision Of herself
resting" in January. But when he
who sells goods on the road groans
and losses In the clutches of dread
full dream, 1t is. strangely enough.
never of Cancelled orders, maniacal
train schedules. lumpy mattresses. or
vilely cooked food. These everyday
things he accepts with philosopher RS
cheerfulness. No-his nightmare is
always a vision of himself, sick on the
road, at a country hotel in the middle
of the spring season.
On the third day that she looked
with more than ordinary indifference
upon hotel and dining car food, Mrs.
Emma McChesney, representing the
T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat
company, wondered il, perhaps, she
did not need a bottle Of bitter tonic.
On the fifth day she noticed that
there were chills chashing up and
down her spine, and back and forth
from legs to shoulder blades when
other people were wiping their chins
and foreheads with bedrae sled-looking
handkerchiefs, and demanding how
long this heat was going to last, any
way. On the sixth day she lost all in
terest in T. A. Bucks featherloom pet
ticoats. And then she Ehew that
something was seriously wrong. On
the seventh day. when the blonde and
nasal waitress approached her in the
dining room Of the little hotel at Glen
Rock, Mimi, Emma McChesney's mind
somehow failed to grasp the meaning
of the all too obvious string Of ques-
lions which were put to her-ques-
tons ending in the inevitable tea, cot.
fee r milk" At that juncture Emma
McChesney had looked up into the
girls face in a puzzled. uncompre-
bending way, had passed one hand
dazedly over her hot forehead and re-
piled, with great earnestness:
Yours of the twelfth at hand and
contents noted the greatest
little skirt on the market he's
going to be a son to be proud of. God
bless him want to leave CAL
for seven sharp"
The lank waitress face took on an
added Darkness. One of the two trav
cling men at the same table started
to laugh, but the other put out his
hand quickly, rose, and said, Shut up
you blamed fool! Can't you see the
lady's sick?" And started in the di
rection of her chair.
Even then there came into Emma
McChesney's ordinarily well-ordered
alert mind the uncomfortable though
that she was talking nonsense. Sh'
made last effort to order her brazil
into its usual sane clearness, failed
and saw the coarse white table clotl
rising swiftly and slanting to NEE
her head.
1t speaks well for Emma McChes
h.l hot xr,hn oh
herself in bed, two strange womer
and one strange man, and an alltoC
familiar bell-boy in the room, she di
not say, Where am 1? What hal
pened?" Instead she told herself tina
the amazingly and unbelievably hant
some young man bending over he
with stethoscope was a doctor; tina
the plump, bleached blonde in tn
white shirtwaist was the hotel hous,
keeper; that the lank ditto was
waitress; and that the expression O
the face Of each was that of Apr
hension, tinged with pleasurable e,
element So she sat up, dislodgin
the stethoscope, and ignoring the pu
pose Of the thermometer which had r
posed under her tongue.
Look here!" she said, addressir
the doctor In high, queer voice.
can't be sick, young man. Haven
time. Not just now. Put 1t of unit
August and Ill be as sick as you lik
Why, man, this is the middle of Jun
and I'm due in Minneapolis now"
Lie down. please" said the han
some young doctor. "and don't da
remove this thermometer again un,
tell you to. This can't be put OF uni
August. You're sick right now"
Mrs. McChesney shut her lips ov
The little glass tube, and watched 4
young doctors impassive face
takes them no time to learn that trio
and, womanwise, jumped to her oy
conclusion.
How sick?" she demanded, I
thermometer read.
"Oh, II won't be so bad" said I
very young doctor. with a professic
ally cheerful smile.
Emma McChesney sat up In bed wi
jerk. You mean-sick! Not ill.
erippy, or run down, but sick? Trains
nurse sick! Hospital sick! Doct,
twice-a-day sick! Table-by-thebedsi,
with-bottles-on-it sick!"
"Well-a-" hesitated the doctl
and then took shelter behind a br