LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1975, 23 June 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

* HOW WE BEAT THK DOCTORS AND BESTOBED AUNT MONA. [Abridged from the " Argosy."] My aunt Mona, if her own words might be believed, had hardly been well for a day throughout her life. She walked the earth a bundle of unstrung nerves, an incarnation of aches and pains, a living sufferer of all the disorders that poor mortals are liable to, a specimen of utter misery and living martyrdom. From the crown of her smooth, brown head down to her pretty feet, there was no sound health in her. So she would assnre us ten times a day. How is it, I wonder, that people who have every essential good in life to make them comfortable, must create discomfort for themselves ? Some do it. Aunt Mona found hers in health—that is, you understand, in the lack of health. And she might have been so bright and happy I The wife of Thomas Butterfield, substantial yeoman and farmer, whose crops never seemed tn fail, and whose housa was filled with plenty, aunt Mona had every sub3trntial good in their plain way, that she could have. Her children were hearty, her friends true. But that health of hers ruined everything. Any husband less sunny tempered than uncle Butterfield would have become morose ere this. Mr Whale, the parson, talking of it one evening to my father, when he had called in and stayed to supper, and they became confidential over their whiskey and water, declared he should have shaken her long ago were she his wife, and been fit to turn her out of doors afterwards. Aunt Mona did not sit patiently down and endure her suffering—she had too much spirit for that. I don't believe there was a doctor within a hundred miles who bad not heard the dismal story of her manifold and ever increasing ailments. She had consulted various kinds of practioners, and had fully tested all the patent medicines of the day, and yet—here she was still, not cured; worse than ever. Papa would call her on the sly, 'My Sister Moaner.' But now a wonderful thine occurred. There came iato the village hard by a man of medicine, and he set np his tent there for a day or two. He called himself the great " Physio-Electric-Magnetic Healer," and he came heralded by a mighty flourish of trumpets, aDd by bills as large as life, professing to cure everything. Aunt Mona was in a flutter of hope. She wrote to him to say she was coming, and she took me with her. Her own children were not old enough, and Uncle Butterfield would as soon have paid a visit to the moon. The great magnetic healer was a tall msn with a black beard. He solemnly bowed aunt into a big chair, and me into a smaller one.

' I have enjoyed poor health for twenty years,' began aunt Mona, in a sighing tone, while the great doctor, sitting before her, looked and listened attentively ; * some of the medical men I have consulted say it mast be the lungs, othere the liver, others, again, say it is the heart. I say it is all three. 7 hey cannot find out any organic disease, they tell me, and they only recommend proper diet, air, and exercise. One of them went so far as to say that all I wanted was cheerfulness. I know better. And so would they if they felt as I feel. 1 told old Stafford so, our doctor, the other day. My opinion is that I have a complication of diseases ; my lungs sra weak, my liver does not act, and I am often terribly pressed for breath, as my niece here, Miss Arkright, can testify to. That, of course, must be the heart.' 'Of course,' murmured the great magnetic healer, ' go on, madam.' ' I am troubled perpetually with rheumatic and neuralgic pains, and I have something dreadful in my back. The spine, no ioaht. One minnte the blood will gallop up and down my veins like a streak of lightning, the next it soems to freeze as if it were so much ice. I have shiverings, and I have bad nights, and I have headache—and altogether I am sure no poor woman was ever so afflicted. Can you do anything for me, sir ? I believe the heart's the worst."

'Madame,' said the great Magnectlc Healer, pompously, ' that particular form of heart disease has been of frequent occurrence in my practice, and I have been invariably successful in its treatment. Scientifically speaking, your complaint Is malformation of the right auricle, and—there may be —something a little amiss with the left ventricle. I think perhaps there is. Yon feel out of spirits now, don't you, often ; especially In damp, gloomy weather ; and a sort of distaste to everything V ' Why, doctor, no one ever before told me this?' exclaimed aunt Mona in ecstacy ; 'it Is exaotly how I do feel.' ' Yes, yes, my dear madam, I could describe your every sensation just as well as though I myselt were the sufferer. How is your appetite V * Well, it is not to be relied on ; bnt it's mostly very poor. Some days I eat well enough ; others I can't touch a thing, and I live then upon strong green tea, or perhaps coffee, and toast a«d butter.' ' A most deleterious practice, my dear madam ; order is nature's first law, and it behoves us to be regular in our diet. This capriclousness of appetite arises from the derangement I speak of, and can be easily remediei. Do you sleep well Y 'Good graclcus, no, doctor! Not as a rule. How can you expect it 1 And If I do sleep I dream. The other night I had a dreadful dream. I thought I saw the ghosts of my two dead brothers who were drowned ten years ago. They were beckoning to me. I woke in the worst fright possible, screaming and crying.' * And had yon gone to bed supperless that night—upon nothing but green tea ?' ' Well, no. That night I had managed to eat a morsel of supper and drink a drop of our old ale. Hot pork chops and apple fritters we had, I remember.' The doctor coughed. * Yes, they beckoned to me distinctly,' continued aunt Mona, returning to the ghosts of her two brothers; ' It was a sign, I know, doctor ; a warning that I must soon follow them. I feel that I am not long for this world,' * My dear lady, -do not despair, I implore you, I fear, madam, that you are inclined to hysteria. In simpler phrase, that you are nervous,' ' No, doctor, I cannot say that I am: I should be if I gave way to my feelings, but that is what I never allow myself to do. My husband at times tells me I an hysteri- ! cal, but when I'm dead and gone he'll know I better. He will realise then that I wa3 the patientest, uncomplainingest mortal woman that ever breathed. Being so hearty himself, he cannot understand that other people I have ailments ; and so—and so—all I know la that I am frightfully ill, and get no sympathy.' And, with the last words, aunt Mona covered her face with her handkerchief and sobbed alond. Much affected, the great Magnetic Healer turned away, as if to conceal his emotion. Then, returning to his chair, he spoke in a consoling tone, ' Dry your tears, dear lady, I have the gift of presoience, which assures me that you will live, and not die. Although my great reliance in the cure of disease is my wonderful mesmeric and magnetic power, yet, in addition to these, I am possessed of an unrivalled medicine, the secret of whose preparation was communicated to me, while in the spiritual-trance state, by the great Galen himself. Take heart. It shall cure you.' 'Oh, if it could!' cried aunt, dropping her handkerchief ; what medioine is It ?' «It ia called the * Elixir of Life and Universal Panacea.' This small bottle of medicine which I will give you,' he added, producing a little white phial filled with a lemon-colored liquid, ' is sufficient to enre any mortal disease, and •It don't look much of it,' interrupted aunt. ' My good lady, it will last you your lifetime. You may take one drop on riffc'ng in the morning, one drop at noon, and one drop before retiring at night. Continue this course for a fortnight then one drop only every other day, until you are cured, will be sufficient.' Pocketing hiß fee of two guineas, the renowned Magnetic Healer bowed us out, my aunt clasping the treasured bottle. ' What a mercy I went to him!' she cried, ' if he had but come here a few years ago! What do you think of him, Maria ?' Now the truth was, I did not think much of him. My impression wa3, he had been fit to burst out laughing all the time, but it would not do to say so. ' If it cures you, aunt Mona, it will be a good thing,' Uncle Butterfield took an opportunity of tasting the 'Elixir,' and privately assured his friends, amidst bursts of laughter, that he could testify to the truth of ite being

E'ixir—Paregoric Elixir, much diluted and flavored ; but that, and nothing else. Bat now, a dire misfortune befel this golden: remedy. Some few days later Johnny, the yonngeat of the little ones, aged seven, saw the phial on his mother's dressing ta>le, got hold of it, and drank the whole at a draughts No evil ensued to Johnny, but his mother was frightfully put out, and Johnny got a whipping. This wonderful elixir could not have failed to cure her, and now it was gone. The great Magnetic Healer was also gone, which made things the more distressing; Our village had not patronised him as hemight have expected, considering the wonderful announcement bills, and he had packed up his traps and started, the good genius that presides over the interests of travelling quack dootois alone knew where Ear three days aunt Mona sat on the hearth rug, sobbing. 'lt would have been the saving of my life I I see it; I feel and know it. I had confidence in that elixir. And it must be next to a miracle that that wicked Johnny is n'.t dead. I was so much, better for the few days I took it. And now I mu9t bear the retarn of all my old ailments and die ! Woe's me 1' And the old aliment did return—as aunt Mor a Baid, and she made life a harden to her3eif and everybody about her. Upon the morning of one of those perfect days, cloudless, serene and balmy, which only the month of June can bring to earth, I took my sewing and started over to my aunt Mona's. We lived nearly half a mile distant, in the old Manor House. As I tripped lightly over the green meadows, past fragrant orchards and blooming gardens, laden with the perfumes of '* iccenße bearing June," I said to myself: 'Surely, upon such a day as t>is, even aunt Mona must be well and happy.' Ah, vain delusion ! The idea of health and happiness connected with aunt Mona. was simply ridiculous.

' Mamma is never happy unless she is perpectly miserable,' said her eldest daughter one day, saucy Kate ; and no words of mine could better express the state of things. Passing through the garden, I found Louisa and Kate sitting under the arbor of roses and honeysuckles shelling a dish of early green pea 3 for dinner, and cha'ting and laughing very merrily. PhilJis, the dairy maid, was churning in the out-house and keeping time to the rise and fall of her churn-dasher with the most blithesome of soft melodies. All this peace, this rural content, this bright happiness, found an echo in my own heart. • Where is your mistress V I said to Sarah, who sat in the best kitchen—for I had gone in the back way. ' Groaning and moaning somewhere about —as sha always is, Mies Maria,' replied the old nurse, who had lived with them for years, and had a habit of saying what she pleased. (To oe continued?)