The Carlisle independent., 1918-01-10
CHAPTER l-continued.


 curious how much you depend on meals to break up the day. All the morning long you keep thinking, T must set so much done before lunch" and then in the afternoon you spur yourself on to an extra effort with the thought of better dinner than usual when you get through. Take these meal land marks out of your day and what is left? Nothing but dreary. dead level desert of time, day whose limits seem interminable.
 How many days is it until we eat again?" I asked hopelessly.
 "Six and a half Lucille computed. ''Then we get some orange juice and few kernels of popcorn"
 Then what?"
 That's all for the first day"
 A few kernels of popcorn! Can you imagine a kernel of popcorn floating hither and yon in all that sea of water and finally giving up with despairing shriek when it finds there is no place to land?
 You mustn't think of things to eat. You're not really hungry. It is your imagination. Tighten your belt and you won't know that you haven't eaten"
 I followed her advice. True enough, the belt was quite loose. \ terrible thought struck me-a few days of fast ing and I would have to wear suspend ersl I had always prided myself on a self supporting figure, as it were, and had jeered at the fence rail build which is obliged to hang all its garments from it's shoulders. Already with one . meai missing I was up to the last notch in my belt.
 Along toward noon I noticed dis tinct headache.
 That will pass away" Lucille assured me. "Lipton S. Clair says so, and he ought to know
 "Why ought he to know2' snapped. Did he invent headaches, or is he just generalizing from reading about some body else's headache? This pain I've got here has settled in my region of thought for long run, and I defy any Lipton S Clair to drive it out"
 Don't be cross" Lucille soothed. Let
 
 me dip my handkerchief in this spring here and wet your forehead with it.
 She did, and while it didn't do any good I always like to have her fussing around me.
 The spring is one that every coe vis- it's who comes to the island, and there is tin cup sitting on a rock near by. I started to get a drink.
 You mustn't drink that water" Lu- cile stopped me You must not drink anything but distilled water while you are fasting"
 "Why nOt?"
 Because when there is nothing else in it the stomach is particularly sus- ceptible to disease"
 That was more of L. S. Clair's maga- zine stuff. I knew it. Probably he got about cents 8 word for it too.
 That water, pure as it is, may have microbes in it." she continued. -- i"What chance would microbe have against my stomach2'' I returned bit terly, but I refrained from drinking the water. In those days that woman had me under her thumb.
 At nightfall we sat around that white table once more. I think even Lucile's enthusiasm was wavering. It seemed distinctly more of an effort to be cheer ful than it had at breakfast. Her moth CT was frankly miserable and eyed me with a glance which warned me that were we cannibals the laws of hos pitality would hardly protect one of my build.
 Have some water, Mir Blainey, Lucille said.
 q won't drink another drop tonight. I declared, unless I can have some fiavoring extract in it." After that we sat around thinking about sweet potatoes and hash and steaks, but talking about the latest books and the moonlight through the trees But what is moonlight on an empty stomach? Merely moonlight nothing more.
 What's thatT' demanded Lucille straining her ears to catch .ome sound out on the water. There was a faint ''put-put" out somewhere.
 Its Johnson's launch,' said Mrs Green. q can tell because 1t misses every tenth explosion"
 "Lipton s. Clair says that fasting makes all the senses extraordinarily acute" Lucille explained.
 know Mrs. Green said "-- Lipton S. Clairv' under her breath, but I did not hear it.
 'r wonder what Johnson's boat can be doing out here at this time of night" Lucille speculated.
 He must be bringing some one over here" said her mother. "Ours is the