LEARNING TO EAT
It was three in the early July afternoon. The large parlor, which had
been turned into a bedroom, was darkened by closely-drawn shades; a
dim, softened light coming from a half-hidden lamp deepened the dark
rings around the worn nurse's eyes--eyes which bespoke sleepless
nights and a heavy heart. A wan mother stood near the nurse, every
line of her face showing the pain of lengthened anxiety. Tensely one
hand held the other, the restraint of culture, only, keeping her from
wringing them in her anguish. Dr. Harkins, the village physician,
stood at the foot of the bed, his honest face set in strong lines in
anticipation of the worst. Many scenes of suffering had rendered him
only more sympathetic with human sorrow, sympathetic with the real,
increasingly intolerant of the false. At the bed-side stood the
expert, who had come so far, at so great an expense-long, rough miles
by auto that a few hours might be saved-who had come, they all
believed, to decide the fate of the beloved girl who lay so death-like
before them.
Ruth Rivers was the only one in the room who was not keenly alert or
distressingly tense. Even in her waxy whiteness and unnatural
emaciation, her face was good. The forehead was high and, with the
symmetrical black eyebrows and long, dark lashes, suggested at a
glance the good quality of her breeding. The aquiline nose was pinched
by suffering, the finely curving lips were now bloodless and drawn
tight from time to time, as though to repress the cry of pain; these
marks of suffering could not rob her countenance of its refinement.
Her breathing was shallow; at times it seemed irregular; and wan,
almost inert, the fragile figure seemed nearing the eternal parting
with its soul. The silence of the sick-room was fearsomely ominous.
Three weeks before, Ruth, her mother, and ever-apprehensive Aunt
Melissa had come from the heat of coastal Georgia to the invigorating
coolness of the Southern Appalachians. They had come to Point View
several weeks later than usual this year, as spring was tardy and the
hot days at home had been few. Ruth had been most miserable for weeks
before they left home, but had stood the trip well, and Judge Rivers
had received an encouraging, indeed a hopeful report from the invalid.
But a few days later a letter telling of another of Ruth's attacks was
followed immediately by an urgent, distressed telegram which caused
him to adjourn court and hasten to his family.
For many years Dr. Harkins had driven through the mountains eight
starving months, serving and saving the poorly housed and often
destitute mountaineers. The tourist flood from the burning, summer
lowlands to the mountains' refreshment gave him his living. Dr.
Harkins was as truly a missionary as though he were on the pay-roll of
a denominational society. He had always helped, or the mountains had
helped, or something had helped Ruth before, but this time nothing
helped. The doctor had already called a neighboring physician; they
were both perplexed, and each feared to say the word which, in their
minds, spelled her doom. For nearly three days Ruth had been
delirious, this gentle, sensible, reserved girl, tossing and calling
out. A few times she had even screamed, and her mother always said
that she had been "too fine a baby to even cry out loud." For five
nights there had been no sleep save an unnatural stupor produced by
medicine. Mother and nurse had taxed their strength keeping her in bed
during the paroxysms of her suffering, which, hour by hour, seemed to
grow in intensity and to defy the ever-increasing doses of quieting
drugs. She had recognized no one for days. Even her mother's voice
brought back no moment of natural response. "It must be meningitis,"
Dr. Harkins finally said, and the other doctor nodded in agreement.
And Aunt Melissa informed the neighbors that it was "meningitis" and
that her darling Ruth could last but a few days. The mother's anxiety
reiterated "meningitis," and good, levelheaded Martha King, the nurse,
knew that the three cases of meningitis which she had nursed had
suffered the same way before they died. When Judge Rivers came, he
spent but one minute in the sick-room. It was days before he dared
reenter. Ruth did not know him. For the first time in her twenty-seven
years, she had failed to respond happily to his hearty, rich-voiced
love-greeting. The Judge's small fortune had grown slowly. Only that
year had the mortgage been finally lifted on their comfortable Georgia
home. But in that minute at the sufferer's bedside all he had was
thrown into the scales. Ruth must be saved. She was the only daughter;
she was a worthily beloved daughter. "No, she cannot be moved to Johns
Hopkins; the trip is too rough and long; she is too weak," decided Dr.
Harkins, and the consultant agreed. "Our only hope for her is to get
the 'brain expert' from the next state." Five days had passed since
the patient had retained food. For twenty-four hours the tide of her
strength seemed only to ebb. They all counted the minutes. The summer-
boarders in the little town, so many of whom knew the sick girl,
counted the hours, for Ruth was much quieter--too quiet, they felt. An
hour before, Aunt Melissa had tiptoed in to see her darling; the
finger-tips seemed cold in her excited palm, the nails looked bluish
to her dreading eyes, and she retreated to the back porch-steps, threw
her apron over her head and sat weaving to and fro, inconsolate; nor
would she look up even when the big motor panted into sight out of a
cloud of dust, and stopped. "It is too late, too late," moaned Aunt
Melissa. Dr. Harkins and Judge Rivers met the neurologist. The former
reviewed the case in a few sentences. The Judge simply said: "Doctor,
my whole savings are nothing. I would give my life for hers."
In the sick-room tensity had given place to intensity, as with deft,
skillful directness the doctor made his examination. He had finished;
the light had again been dimmed, and in the added shadow the haggard
face seemed ashen. Motionless, thoughtful, interminably silent, the
expert stood, holding the sick girl's hand. The nurse first saw him
smile. It was a serious smile; it was a strangely hopeful smile--a
smile which was instantly reflected in her own face and which the
mother caught and Dr. Harkins saw. Each one of them was thrilled with
such thrills as become rare when the forties have passed, thrilled
even before they heard his words: "It is not meningitis. Your daughter
can get well."
In the conference which followed, Dr. Harkins felt that his confidence
had been well placed. It is surprising how much the expert had
discovered in forty minutes,--and how carefully considered and
relentlessly logical were his reasons for deciding that it was an
"auto-toxic meningismus, secondary to renal and pancreatic
insufficiency," which, translated, signifies a self-produced poison
due to defective action of the liver and pancreas, resulting in
circulatory disturbance in the covering of the brain. Most clearly,
too, he revealed that several of the most alarming symptoms were the
result of the added poison of the drugs which had been given for the
relief of the intolerable pain. Each step of the long road to recovery
was outlined with equal clearness, and the light of hope burst in
strong on Dr. Harkins first, then on Martha King. The crushing load
was lifted from off the Judge's heart. The promise seemed too good to
be true, to the mother, who had seen her daughter go down through the
years, step by step. It never penetrated the shadow of Aunt Melissa's
pessimism.
What forces had been at work to bring ten years of relentlessly
increasing suffering, even impending death, to Ruth Rivers at twenty-
seven, when she should have been in the glory of her young womanhood?
"Her headaches have always been a mystery," her mother had said again
and again, and this saying had been accepted by family and friends.
Let us join hands with Understanding, step behind this mystery, and
find its solution.
Judge Rivers' father had been Judge Rivers, too. The war between the
States had absorbed the family wealth; still, our Judge Rivers showed
every evidence of good living: he was always well-dressed, as befitted
his office, portly and contented, as was also befitting, fine of color
and always well. His daughter's illness had been practically the only
problem in the affairs of his life which he had not solved to his
quite reasonable satisfaction. His love for Ruth held half of his
life's sweetness.
Mrs. Rivers was tall, active, almost muscular in type. Her brow, like
her daughter's, was high. The quality of her Virginia blood had marked
her face. She had always been unduly pale, but never ill. Controlled
and reasonable, she had ministered to her home with efficiency and
pride.
Aunt Melissa, her sister, five years the senior, was tall and strong,
but her paleness had long been unhealthily tinted with sallowness. For
years she had been subject to attacks of depression when for days she
would insist upon being let alone, even as she let others alone. Ruth
was the only bright spot she recognized in her life, and her
morbidness was constantly picturing disaster for this object of her
love.
Ruth's babyhood was a joy. Plump, cooing and happy, she evinced, even
in her earliest days, evidences of her rare disposition. At eighteen
months, however, she began having spells of indigestion. She always
sat in her high-chair beside Aunt Melissa, at the table, and rarely
failed to get at least a taste of anything served which her fancy
indicated. Her wise little stomach from time to time expressed its
disapproval of such unlawful liberties, but parents and aunts and
grandmothers, and probably most of us, are very dull in interpreting
the protests of stomachs. So Ruth got what she liked, and what was an
equal misfortune, she liked what she got; and no one ever associated
the liking and the getting with the poor sick stomach's periodic
protests. As a girl Ruth was not very active. There was a certain
reserve, even in her playing, quite in keeping with family traditions.
Mother, Aunt Melissa and the servants did the work--still Ruth
developed, happy, unselfish, kindly and sensitive. There was rigid
discipline accompanying certain rules of conduct, and her deportment
was carefully molded by the silent forces of family culture. They
lived at the county-seat. The public schools which Ruth attended were
fairly good. As she grew older, while she remained thin and never
approached ruggedness, her digestive "spells" were much less frequent,
and during the two years she spent away from home in the Convent, she
was quite well, and one year played center on the second basket ball
team. Two years away at school were all that the Judge could then
afford. And so at eighteen she was home for good. That fall she began
having headaches. She was reading much, so she went to Mobile and was
carefully fitted with glasses. The correction was not a strong one,
but the oculist felt it would relieve the "abnormal sensitiveness of
her eyes, which is probably causing her trouble."
Throughout her years of suffering, Ruth had always maintained the rare
restraint which marks fineness of soul. No one ever heard her
complain. Even her mother could not be sure that another attack was
on, until she found Ruth alone in her darkened room. Acquaintances,
even friends, never heard her mention her illness.
The midsummer months in Southern Alabama drive such as are able to the
relief of the mountains of Tennessee and the Carolinas. The Judge had
always felt that he should send his family away during July and
August; they often went in June when the summers were early. And these
weeks of change proved, year after year, the most helpful influences
that came to Ruth. She always improved and would usually remain
stronger until after Thanksgiving. But with irregular periodicity the
blinding, prostrating headaches would return--a week of pain, nausea
and prostration. Yet Ruth never asked for, nor took medicine, unless
it was ordered by the doctor, and then more in consideration of the
desires of her family, for the unnatural sensations, produced by most
of the remedies she was given, seemed but the substitution of one
discomfort for another. The only exercise that counted, which this
girl ever had, was during her weeks at Point View. The stimulation of
the invigorating mountain air seemed to get into her blood, and after
a few weeks with her friendly mountains she could climb the highest
with little apparent fatigue. At home, the country was flat, the roads
sandy, and even horseback riding uninteresting. She had never been
taught any strengthening form of daily home-exercise, and so she
suffered on. While the glasses brought comfort, they lessened, for but
a short time, the number and the intensity of her attacks. Several
physicians were consulted and several varying courses of treatment
undertaken, but no betterment came which lasted, and the headaches
remained a mystery, not only to her mother, but to others who
seriously tried to help. As we are behind the scenes, we need no
longer delay the mystery's solution. It was not eyes, they were
accurately corrected; it was not stomach, as much stomach treatment
proved; it was not anaemia, or the many excellent tonics that had been
prescribed would have cured; it was not displaced vertebrae nor
improperly acting nerves, or the manipulations and vibrations and deep
kneadings of the specialists in mechanical treatment would have
rescued her years before. It was, and here is the secret--her mother's
wonderful table!
The war had brought ruinous, financial losses to most Virginia
families. As a result, Ruth's mother had been taught, in minute
detail, the high art of the best cookery of the first families of
Virginia. And how she could cook, or make the colored cook cook! The
Rivers' table had, for years, been the standard of the county-seat.
Mrs. Rivers' spiced hams, fig preserves, brandied plum-pudding,
stuffed roast-duck, fruit salads, all made by recipes handed down
through several generations, could not be excelled in richness and
toothsomeness. No simple dishes were known at the Rivers' table;
these, for those poor mortals who knew not the inner art. Double
cream, stimulating seasonings, sauces rarely spiced, the sort that
recreate worn-out appetites, were never lacking at a Rivers' meal.
Ruth had been overfed, had been wrongly fed since babyhood.
The expert said hope lay in taking her back to babyhood and feeding
her for days as though she were a four months' child. He said she must
be taught to eat; that her salvation lay in a few foods of plebeian
simplicity, foods which almost any one could get anywhere, foods which
did not involve long hours of preparation according to priceless
recipes. He said also that certain other foods were vicious, such
matter-of-course foods on the Rivers' table, foods which Mrs. Rivers
would have felt humiliated to omit from a meal of her ordering, and he
insisted that these must be lastingly denied this young woman with
prematurely exhausted, digestive glands. The process of her
reeducation, succinctly expressed as it was in a few sentences, called
for tedious months of care, of denial and of effort. It demanded that
which was more than taxing in many details. So for Ruth Rivers long
weeks were spent in a hospital-bed. She was fed on the simplest of
foods, each feeding measured with the same care as were her few
medicines, for now truly her food was medicine, and her chief medicine
was food. Massage seemed at last to bring help, for even in bed she
gained in strength.
It was several weeks before her mind was entirely clear, but she was
soon being taught the science of food; this included an understanding
outline of food chemistry, of the processes of digestion, of food
values, of the relation of food to work, of the vital importance of
muscular activity and the relation of muscle-use to nervous health.
Her beloved sweets and her strong coffee, the only friends of her
suffering days, were gradually buried even from thought in this
accumulation of new and understood truths--most reasonable and sane
truths. Forty pounds she gained in twelve weeks. She had never weighed
over one hundred and twenty-five. She has never weighed less than one
hundred and forty-five since, and, as she is five feet eight, her one
hundred and forty-five pounds brought her a new symmetry which, with
her high-bred face, transformed the waxen invalid into an attractive
beauty. She learned to do manual work. She learned to use every muscle
the Lord had given her, every day she lived. An appetite unwhipped by
condiments or unstimulated by artifice, an appetite for wholesome
food, has made eating a satisfaction she never knew in the old days.
This was ten years ago. Many changes have come in the Rivers'
household, the most far-reaching of which is probably the revolution
which shook its culinary department from center to circumference. What
saved daughter must be good for them all. Father is less portly, more
active, less ruddy. Some of the color he lost was found by the mother.
Aunt Melissa disappears into her gloom-days but rarely, and has
smiling hours unthought in the past. And Ruth has proven that the
mystery was adequately solved. She married the kind of man so
excellent a woman should have, and went through the trying weeks of
her motherhood and has cared for her boy through the demanding months
of early childhood without a complication. And all this in the face of
Aunt Melissa's reiterated forebodings!