February, 1915
EVERYBODY’S FRIEND
5
Juvt Sixty
This is the eleventh day of February, and it
is my birthday. It is a warm and lovely day.
Sixty years ago today it was cold and snowy in
Indiana. It was followed by cold weather and
deep snows. My father worked out in it, and
caught cold, and died when I was two weeks old.
He was about forty one at the time he left us.
Mother lived forty years longer, a lonely widow.
No one can ever know how much I missed a
father, or how as boy and man I sorrowed at
his lonely grave.
There were four older children in the family,
the oldest a boy in his fifteenth year. He at once
took charge of the farm, and we have looks 1 up
to him as the head of the family ever since. He
has great grand children low, but is still a vig-
orous old man. The other were girls, and they
all have grand children around them now. They
all live in the old home land.
I was a frail child and have never been very
strong. Much ill health, farm work, often be-
yond my stregth, and hair that turned gray
early in life, make me look much older than I
am. From a child I have been much afflicted
with stomach trouble and headache. If I miss-
ed a meal an hour it brought on a headache.
From a boy on to middle age I was much afflict-
ed with dizziness—a vague, dreamy feeding that
I hardly knew what I was doing, which made
work very difficult. During these years I bad
much misery of the stomach, and we feared it
was cancer. When our children were small it
was so sore that I could not bear the weight of a
baby’s hand upon it, and many a time have I lift-
ed its harrd away. When I was about thirty five
my eyelids began to twitch, and 1 was getting
nervous, and knew there was something wrong.
In that day coffie was considered almost as
necessary a part of the meal as bread, and it
was usually drank three times a day. Cjffee
soup was a common food for babies and little
children. Even then some people said coffee
was not healthy. The rep’y to this was that
many had used it all their lives and yet died
of old age. The same can be said of some men
who hive always drank liquor.
When mylids began to twitch I became sure
that coffee was injuring me, and that its effects
were too much like, the effects of liquor, and I
determined to quit it. At first we used home
made wheat-coffee, which answered very well,
and it was not many months until my health
began to improve. When 1 was from home where
there was no wheat coffee, I would drink the
common coffee, and after drinking several cups
my old troubles would come back.
I finally entirely quit drinking it. For years
I drank hot water, but now’ I drink only plain
cold water, and not much of this at meal time.
For over sixteen years I have not tasted coffee.
The result is that I very seldom have headache,
am not affected with dizziness, have no stomach
trouble when ordinarily careful with my eating,
and am not as nervous as I was twenty years
and more ago. I drink no tea, and take no med
icine of any kind, and my health is better than
it was when I was a young man.
These things are told in the hope that they
may help other afflicted ones in their search
for health.                         — D. E. C
General Committee
On Child Rescue Work
♦♦♦♦♦♦
Frank Fisher, Pres , Mexico, Indiana.
E. F. John, Treas., McPherson. Kansas.
P. S. Thomas, Sec’y., Harrisonburg, Virginia.
The Child Rescue
And Orphan Society
(Incorporated)
Of Kansas and Eastern Colorado
Board of Trustees.
1. H. Crist, Kansas City, Ks., Pres,
D. A. Crist, Quinter, Ks., V. Pres.
Wm. LI. Miller. Independence, Ks., Sec.
,1. J. Bowsek, Conway Springs, Ks.
F. J. Price, McPherson, Ks., Treasurer.
Supt. & Manager, E. E John, McPherson, Ks
Good by, proud world, I’m going home;
Tbou’rt not tny friend; I am not thine;
Too long through weary crowds I roam:—
A river ark on the ocean brine;
Too long I am tossed like the driven foam;
But. now, proud world, 1 am going home. .
- Emerson.