Part 69

“I’ve never thought much about the children’s clothes, except to change between the seasons,” confessed Mrs. Clyde. “I supposed that was all there is to it.”

“Not wholly. I once knew a man who died from changing his necktie.”

“Did he put on a red tie with a pink shirt?” interestedly queried Manny, who had reached the age where attire was becoming a vital interest.

“He changed abruptly from the big puff-tie which he had worn all winter, and which was a regular chest-protector, to a skimpy bow, thereby exposing a weak chest and getting pneumonia quite naturally. Yet he was ordinarily a cautious old gentleman, and shifted the weight of his underclothes by the calendar—a rather stupid thing to do, by the way.”

“On the first of November,” began Grandma Sharpless severely—

“Yes, I know,” cut in the Health Master. “Your whole family went into flannels whether the thermometer was twenty or seventy. And we’ve seen it both, more than once on that date.”

“What harm did it ever do them?”

“Bodily discomfort. In other words, lessened vitality. Think how much nervous wear is suffered by a child itching and squirming in a scratchy suit of heavy flannels on a warm day.”

“Children can’t be changing from one weight to another every day, can they?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“No need of that. But in the fall and spring we can regulate that matter a little more by the thermometer, and a little less by the almanac. There is also the consideration of controlling heat. Now, Charley, what would you think of a man who, in June, say, with the mercury at seventy-five, wandered around in a heavy suit and his winter flannels.”

“I’d think he was sick,” said the nine-year-old promptly, “or else foolish. But what makes you ask me?”

“Just by way of calling your attention to the thermometer, which in this room stands at seventy-nine. And here we all sit, dressed twenty-five per cent warmer than if we were out doors in a June temperature several degrees colder. You’re the Committee on Air and Light, Charley. I think this matter of heat ought to come within your province.”

“And it makes you feel so cold when you go out,” said Julia.

“Of course. We Americans live in one of the most trying climates in the world, and we add to its rigors by heating our houses like incubators. No room over seventy, ought to be the rule.”

“It’s hard to work in a cold room,” said Mr. Clyde.

“Not when you’re used to it. The Chicago schools that have started winter roof classes for sickly children, find that the average of learning capacity goes up markedly in the cold, clean air.”

“But they can’t be as comfortable,” said Mrs. Clyde.

“Much more so. As soon as the children get used to it, they love it, and they object strenuously to going back into the close rooms. The body grasps and assimilates the truth; the mind responds.”

“Well, I like to be comfortable as well as anybody,” said Mrs. Sharpless, “but I don’t consider it the chief end of life.”

“Not the chief end,” assented Dr. Strong; “the chief means.”

“Comfort and health,” mused Mrs. Clyde. “It seems a natural combination.”

“The most natural in the world. Let me put it into an allegory. Health is the main line, the broad line, the easy line. It’s the simple line to travel, because comfort keeps pointing it out. Essentially it is the line of the least resistance. The trouble with most of us is we’re always unconsciously taking transfers to the cross-lines. The transfer may be Carelessness, or Slothfulness, or Gluttony, or one of the Dissipations in food, drink, work or play; or it may be even Egotism, which is sometimes a poison: but they all take you to Sick Street. Don’t get a transfer down Sick Street. The road is rough, the scenery dismal, and at the end is the cemetery.”

“That’s the end of all roads,” said Grandma Sharpless.

“Then in Heaven’s name,” said the Health Master, “let us take the longest and sunniest route and sing as we go!”

XI. THE BESIEGED CITY

To Bettina falls the credit of setting the match to the train. That lively-minded young lady had possessed herself of a large, red square of cardboard, upon which, in the midst of the Clyde family circle, she wrought mightily with a paint-brush.

“What comes after p in ‘diphtheria,’ Charley?” she presently appealed to her next older brother.

Charley considered the matter with head aslant. “Another p,” he answered, tactfully postponing the evil moment.