Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders. Alcott William Andrus

follow their premature children, at no great distance, to an untimely grave. For nothing was more obvious – I mean to the medical observer – than at an age when everybody ought to be gaining in bodily no less than in mental and moral vigor, they were both of them growing feeble as well as irresolute.

      As a boarder, I left the family some time afterward, though I did not lose sight of it wholly; nor did they entirely forget or disregard the numerous hints I had given them. They made some progress every year. At length, however, I lost sight of them entirely, and only kept up a faint recollection of them by means of an occasional word of intelligence from the place where they resided, showing that they were still alive.

      One day, after the lapse of about eight years, as I was passing through a charming New England village, the stage-coach stopped to let the passengers dine, when, to my great surprise, on stepping out of the coach, whom should I see but my old friend Mr. L.? He was equally surprised, and perhaps equally rejoiced, to see me. The interview was utterly unexpected to us both.

      "How do you do?" said he, grasping my hand. I returned the compliment by inquiring after his own health and that of Mrs. L. It turned out that he had failed in his business a few months before, and that, as a consequence, he had been compelled to remove to the place where he now was, and engage in an employment which brought his skin into contact with the air, and his muscles into prolonged and healthful activity. It appeared also that both he and his family had long since banished the use of medicine. "And now," said he, "thank God I know what it is, once more, to enjoy health; I can not only eat, but work."