or to have my flesh cut off with red-hot knives. There is nothing I
would not be willing to endure if I could only get rid of this horrible
condition."
I prepared a prescription for her, and arranged that she should call
upon me once a week, that I might supervise her progress and have
frequent opportunities to encourage her. The prescription which I read
to her was this:
1. For breakfast eat a piece of beef or mutton as large as your hand,
with a slice of white bread twice as large. For dinner the same amount
of meat, or, if preferred, fish or poultry, with the same amount of
farinaceous or vegetable food in the form of bread or potato. For
supper, nothing.
2. Drink only when greatly annoyed with thirst; then a mouthful of
lemonade without sugar.
3. Take three times a week some form of bath, in which there shall be
immense perspiration. The Turkish bath is best. You must work, either in
walking or some other way, several hours a day.
"But, doctor, I can't walk; my feet are sore."
"I thought that might be the case, but if the soles of your shoes are
four inches broad, and are thick and strong, walking will not hurt your
feet. You must walk or work until you perspire freely, every day of the
week. Of course, you are in delicate health, with little endurance, but,
as you have told me that you are willing to do anything, you are to work
hard at something six or seven hours every day."
4. You must rise early in the morning, and retire late at night. Much
sleep fattens people.
5. The terrible corset you have on, which compresses the center of the
body, making you look a great deal fatter than you really are, must be
taken off, and you must have a corset which any dress maker can fit to
you--a corset for the lower part of the abdomen, which will raise this
great mass and support it.
"This is all the advice I have to give you at present. At first you will
lose half a pound a day. In the first three months you will lose from
twenty to thirty pounds. In six months, forty pounds. You will
constantly improve in health, get over this excessive emotion, and be
much stronger. Every one knows that a very fat horse weighing 1,200
pounds, can be quickly reduced to 1,000 pounds with great improvement to
activity and health. It is still easier with a human being. That you may
know exactly what is being done, I wish you to be weighed; write the
figures in your memorandum, and one week from now, when you come again,
weigh yourself and tell me how much you have lost."
I happened to be out of the city and did not see her until her second
visit, two weeks from our last meeting. It was plain when she entered
that already her system was being toned up, and when we were again in my
private office, she said:
"I have lost six and a half pounds; not quite as much as you told me,
but I am delighted, though nearly starved. I have done exactly as you
prescribed, and shall continue to if it kills me. You must be very
careful not to make any mistakes, for I shall do just as you say. At
first the thirst was dreadful. I thought I could not bear it. But now I
have very little trouble with that."
About four months after our first meeting this young woman brought a
handsome young man with her, and after a pleasant chat, she said to me:
"We are engaged; but I have told my friend that I shall not consent to
become his wife until I have a decent shape. When I came to you I
weighed 209 pounds; I now weigh 163 pounds. I am ten times as strong,
active, and healthy as I was then, and I have made up my mind, for my
friend has left it altogether to me, that when I have lost ten or
fifteen pounds more, we shall send you the invitations."
As the wedding day approached she brought the figures 152 on a card, and
exclaimed, with her blue eyes running over:
"I am the happiest girl in the world, and don't you think I have
honestly earned it? I think I am a great deal happier than I should have
been had I not worked for it."
The papers said the bride was beautiful. I thought she was, and I
suppose no one but herself and husband felt as much interested in that
beauty as I did. I took a sort of scientific interest in it.
We made the usual call upon them during the first month, and when, two
months after the wedding, they were spending the evening with us, I
asked him if his wife had told him about my relations with her
avoirdupois? He laughed heartily, and replied:
"Oh, yes, she has told me everything, I suppose: but wasn't it funny?"
"Not very. I am sure you wouldn't have thought it funny if you could
have heard our first interview. It was just the reverse of funny; don't
you think so madam?"
"I am sure it was the most anxious visit I ever paid any one. Doctor, my
good husband says he should have married me just the same, but I think
he would have been a goose if he had."
"Yes," said the husband, "it was foreordained that we two should be
one."
"To be sure it was," replied the happy wife, "because it was
foreordained that I should get rid of those horrid fifty-seven pounds. I
am going down till I reach one hundred and forty pounds, and there I
will stop, unless my husband says one hundred and thirty. I am willing
do anything to please him."--_Dio Lewis' Monthly._
ORNAMENTS FOR HOMES.
It is not the most expensively furnished houses that are the most
homelike, besides comparatively few persons have the means to gratify
their love of pretty little ornaments with which to beautify their
homes. It is really painful to visit some houses; there naked walls and
cheerless rooms meet you yet there are many such, and children in them
too. How much might these homes be brightened by careful forethought in
making some little ornaments that are really of no expense, save the
time.
Comb cases, card receivers, letter holders, match safes, paper racks,
cornucopias, and many other pretty and useful things can easily be made
of nice clean paste board boxes (and the boxes are to be found in a
variety of colors). For any of these cut out the parts and nicely sew
them together, and the seams and raw edges can be covered with narrow
strips of bright hued paper or tape. Ornament them with transfer or
scrap pictures.
I have seen very pretty vases for holding dried flowers and grasses,
made of plain dark brown pasteboard, and the seams neatly covered with
narrow strips of paper. Pretty ottomans can be made by covering any
suitable sized box with a bit of carpeting, and stuffing the top with
straw or cotton. Or, if the carpeting is not convenient, piece a
covering of worsteds. A log cabin would be a pretty pattern.
To amuse the children during the long winter months, make a scrap-book
of pictures. Collect all the old illustrated books, papers, and
magazines, and cut out the pictures and with mucilage nicely paste them
in a book, first removing alternate leaves so it will not be too bulky.
Perhaps this last remark is slightly wandering from my subject, but I
can't help it, I love the little folks and want them happy. Cares and
trouble will come to them soon enough. Autograph albums are quite the
rage nowadays, and children get the idea and quite naturally think it
pretty nice, and want an album too. For them make a pretty album in the
form of a boot. For the outside use plain red cardboard; for the inside
leaves use unruled paper; fasten at the top with two tiny bows of narrow
blue ribbon. A lady sent my little girl an autograph album after this
pattern for a birthday present and it is very neat indeed. Any of the
little folks who want a pattern of it can have it and welcome by sending
stamp to pay postage. For the wee little girl make a nice rag doll; it
will please her quite as well as a boughten one, and certainly last much
longer. I have a good pattern for a doll which you may also have if you
wish it. A nice receptacle for pins, needles, thread, etc., can be made
in form of an easy chair or sofa. Cut the part of pasteboard and cover
the seat, arms, and back with cloth, and stuff with cotton. Brackets
made of pasteboard will do service a long time.
MRS. F. A. WARNER
SOUTH SAGINAW, MICH.
* * * * *
RAILROADS.
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R.R. CABLE,
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Agents wanted, to whom liberal inducements will be given. Address
RAND, McNALLY & CO.,
Chicago, Ill.
By arrangements with the publishers of this Map we are enabled to make
the following liberal offer: To each person who will remit us $2.25 we
will send copy of THE PRAIRIE FARMER One Year and THIS MAP
POSTPAID. Address
PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO.,
CHICAGO, ILL.
* * * * *
MISCELLANEOUS.
"FACTS ABOUT
Arkansas and Texas."
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Sent free to any address on receipt of a 2-cent stamp. Address
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GEN. PASSENGER AGT., ST. LOUIS, MO.
* * * * *
500 VIRGINIA FARMS & MILLS
FOR SALE AND EXCHANGE. Write for free REAL ESTATE JOURNAL.
R.B. CHAFFIN & CO., Richmond, Virginia.
* * * * *
THE PRAIRIE FARMER is the Cheapest and Best Agricultural Paper
published. Only $2.00 per year.
* * * * *
REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._
OUR YOUNG FOLKS
CHAT ABOUT A BEAR.
As I promised you last week, I will try and tell you about the bear I
saw a few months ago away down in Nova Scotia, not many miles from that
quaint old city of Halifax. Do I hear some of THE PRAIRIE FARMER boys
and girls exclaim, as a real grown-up lady did just before I left
Chicago: "Halifax! why, yes, I have heard tell of the place, but did not
think that anybody ever really went there." People do go there, however,
by the hundreds in the summer time, and a most delightful, hospitable,
charming class of inhabitants do they find the Blue Noses, as they are
called--that is, when one goes to them very well introduced.
But we will have a little talk about Halifax and surroundings when you
have heard about the bear.
Well, in the first place I did not, of course, see the bear in the city,
but in a place called Sackville--a section of country about five miles
long, and extending over hill and dale and valley; through woods and
across streams. My host owned a beautiful farm--picturesquely beautiful
only, not with a money-making beauty--situated upon the slope of a hill,
where one could stand and look upon the most tender of melting sunsets,
away off toward the broad old ocean.
One morning as we were all gathered upon the front stoop, grandpa,
mamma, baby, kitten and all, we looked down the valley and saw coming up
the hill, led by two men, an immense yellow bear. One of the farm hands
was sent to call the men and the bear up to the house. The men, who were
Swiss, were glad enough to come, as they were taking bruin through the
country to show off his tricks and make thereby a little money.
The children were somewhat afraid at first, but soon felt quite safe
when they saw he was firmly secured by a rope. Old bruin's keeper first
gave him a drink of water, then poured a pailful over him, which he
seemed to enjoy very much, as the day was a warm one. One of the men
said something in Swiss, at which the bear gave a roar-like grunt and
commenced to dance. Around and around the great lumbering fellow went on
his two hind legs, holding his fore paws in the air. It was not what one
would call a very "airy waltz," however. Again the keeper spoke, and
immediately bruin threw himself upon the ground and turned somersaults,
making us all laugh heartily. He then told him to shake hands (but all
in Swiss), and it was too funny to see the great awkward animal waddle
up on his hind legs and extend first one paw and then the other. But
what interested us all most, both big and little, was to hear the man
say, "Kisse me," and then to watch the bear throw out his long tongue
and lick his keeper's face.
We then gave the bear some milk to drink, when suddenly he gave a bound
forward toward the baby. But he was securely tied, as we well knew. The
milk roused all the beast's savage instincts, one of the men said.
But what will interest you most of all will be the fact that on the farm
(which consisted of five hundred acres, nearly all woodland) there were
seen almost every morning the footprints of a real savage bear. The
sheep were fast disappearing, and the farmers about were not a little
worried. One day I went for a walk into these same woods, and such
woods! you Western boys and girls could not possibly imagine them--the
old moss-covered logs, and immense trees cut down years ago and left to
lie there until all overgrown with mosses and lichens. I never before
experienced such a feeling of solitude as in that walk of over a mile in
length through those deep dark woods, where sometimes we had literally
to cut our way through with our little hatchets (we always carried them
with us when in the forest).
As I sauntered on, those lines of Longfellow's in Evangeline, came
unconsciously to my mind, so exactly did they describe the place:
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic.
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
Nova Scotia is, as you all know the Acadian country of which our own
fireside poet writes so beautifully. It was but a few miles from where I
was visiting that the scene of Evangeline, that exquisitely tender
romance which so thrills the hearts of both old and young, was laid. As
I drove through the country, coming ever and anon unexpectedly upon one
of the many beautiful lakes from half a mile to two miles in length, in
fancy I pictured the fair Evangeline and her guide, the good Father
Felician, skirting these lakes in a light canoe as they traversed the
whole and through in the sad and fruitless search for the lost lover
Gabriel.
No wonder the soul of the poet was filled with such strange, mystic
beauty which thus found expression in rhythm and song, for Acadia has an
enchantment all its own and can best be interpreted by the diviner
thought of the poet.
But I am afraid, boys and girls, that I have chatted with you so long
now that there will be scarcely room this week to touch upon Halifax.
But, however, if you wish, I will try and talk to you about it next
week, and tell you of some of the winter sports the little Blue Noses
indulge in in the winter time.
MARY HOWE.
A FAIRY STORY BY LITTLE JOHNNY.
Me an Billy we ben readn fairy tales, an I never see such woppers. I bet
the feller wich rote em will be burnt every tiny little bit up wen he
dies, but Billy says they are all true but the facks. Uncle Ned sed cude
I tell one, and I ast him wot about, and he sed: "Wel Johnny, as you got
to do the tellin I'le leav the choice of subjeck entirely to you; jest
giv us some thing about a little boy that went and sook his forten."
So I sed: "One time there was a little boy went out for to seek his
forten, and first thing he see was great big yello posy on a punkin
vine."
Then Uncle Ned he sed: "Johnny, was that the punkin vine wich your bed
once had a bizness connection with?" But I didn't anser, only went on
with the story.
"So the little boy he wocked into the posy, and crold down the vine on
his hands and kanees bout ten thousan hundred miles, till he come bime
bi to a door, wich he opened an went in an found hisself in a grate big
house, ofle nice like a kings pallows or a hotell. But the little boy
dident find any body to home and went out a other door, where he see a
ocion with a bote, and he got in the bote."
Then Uncle Ned he sed a uther time: "Johnny, excuse the ignance of a man
wich has been in Injy an evry were, but is it the regular thing for
punkin vines to have sea side resorts in em?"
But I only sed: "Wen the little boy had saild out of site of land the
bote it sunk, and he went down, down, down in the water, like he was
tied around the neck of a mill stone, till he was swollowed by a wale,
cos wales is the largest of created beings wich plows the deep, but
lions is the king of beests, an the American eagle can lick ol other
birds, hooray! Wen the boy was a seekn his forten in the stummeck of the
wales belly he cut to a fence, an wen he had got over the fence he found
hisself in a rode runin thru a medder, and it was a ofle nice country
fur as he cude see."
Uncle Ned sed: "Did he put up at the same way side inn wich was
patternized by Jonah wen he pennitrated to that part of the morl
vinyerd?"
But I said: "Bimebi he seen a rope hangin down from the ski, and he
begin for to clime it up, a sayin, 'Snitchety, snatchety, up I go,' 'wot
time is it old witch?' 'niggers as good as a white man,' 'fee-faw-fum,'
'Chinese mus go,' 'all men is equil fore de law,' 'blitherum, blatherum,
boo,' and all the words of madgick wich he cude think of. After a wile
it got reel dark, but he kep on a climeing, and pretty sune he see a
round spot of dalite over his hed, and then he cum up out of a well in a
grate city."
Jest then my father he came in, and he said: "Johnny, you get the bucket
and go to the wel and fetch sum water for your mother to wash the
potatoes."
But I said it was Billy's tern, and Billy he sed twasent no sech thing,
and I said he lide, and he hit me on the snoot of my nose, and we fot a
fite, but victery percht upon the banners of my father, cos he had a
stick. Then wile me and Billy was crying Uncle Ned he spoke up and
begun: "One time there was a grate North American fairy taler--"
But I jest fetched Mose a kick, wich is the cat, and went out and pitcht
into Sammy Doppy, which licked me reel mean.
* * * * *
BREEDERS DIRECTORY.
The following list embraces the names of responsible and reliable
Breeders in their line, and parties wishing to purchase or obtain
information can feel assured that they will be honorably dealt with:
CATTLE.
Jersey.
Mills, Charles F.....................Springfield, Illinois
HORSES.
Clydesdales.
Mills, Charles F.....................Springfield, Illinois
SWINE.
Berkshire.
Mills, Charles F.....................Springfield, Illinois
Chester Whites.
W.A. Gilbert......................Wauwatosa Wis.
SHEEP.
Cotswold.
Mills, Charles F.....................Springfield, Illinois
* * * * *
LIVE STOCK, Etc.
Jersey Bulls.
JERSEY BREEDERS desiring young bulls of the most approved form and
breeding, and representing the families most noted for large yields of
butter, will serve their interests by addressing the undersigned.
Stock recorded in A. J. C. C. H. R.
* * * * *
Cotswold Sheep.
CHOICE representatives of this large and popular breed of sheep for sale
at prices satisfactory to buyers.
Ewes and rams of different ages.
Breeding stock recorded in the American Cotswold Record.
CHAS. F. MILLS,
Springfield, Ill.
* * * * *
VICTORIA SWINE.
[Illustration]
FALSTAFF.
Winner of First Prize Chicago Fat Stock Show 1878. Originators of this
famous breed. Also breeders of Pekin Ducks and Light Brahma Fowls. Stock
for sale. Send for circular A.
SCHIEDT & DAVIS,
Dyer, Lake Co. Ind.
* * * * *
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Address Consulting Physician of
MARSTON REMEDY CO., 46W. 14th St., New York.
* * * * *
TWO LADIES MET ONE DAY.
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it's simply horrid, getting worse every day." "Well, why don't you try
'DR. SYKES' SURE CURE,' I know it will cure you!" "Well, then I will,
for I've tried everything else."
Just six weeks afterward they met again and No. 1 said. "Why, how much
better you look, what's up! Going to get married, or what?" "Well, yes,
and it's all owing to 'DR. SYKES' SURE CURE FOR CATARRH;' oh, why
didn't I know of it before? it's simply wonderful."
Send 10 cents to Dr. C.R. Sykes, 181 Monroe street, Chicago, for
valuable book of full information, and mention the "Two Ladies."
* * * * *
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* * * * *
I CURE FITS!
When I say cure I do not mean merely to stop them for a time and then
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* * * * *
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[Illustration]
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