SOMETHING ABOUT TWO BOYS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1190, 21 December 1894, Page 6

SOMETHING ABOUT TWO BOYS.

"The most pathetic incident of my childhood is this: My mother had been very iIL for several weeks, and the doctor solemnly announced that she could,not live more than twO or three days longer at most. That night my father' roused me from sleep and took ,me out of my little bed to bid her a last good-bye. X shall never forget the scene, which was now and awful to me. People were weeping all round the room, the air of which was heavy with the odour of candles and lamps, and reeking with the fumes of drugs. My mother knew and kissed me, and then they took me back to my bed. But ere I was led away some one opened the window a few inches from the top, and I noticed the grey dawn resting on the glass, and .heard the f cheep,, cheep,” of a newly-wakened, bird. Since then. I have associated that hour and sound with that unhappy episode. - “ But (and to say what now'follows I have written the foregoing paragraph)— we were all rasped and- tortured .for nothing. My mother proceeded to get well hand over hand, and, died quietly thirty years afterwards. She survived every person who stood at her bedside that night except me.’’ V • - Speaking of the illness of her son, a boy of nine, a lady says :“ We had to.sit with him night and day, giving him brandy, wine, beef tea, &c., to keep him alive, and expected eyery day would be his last. The physician plainly told us that more could be done to save hirrn” : '

Yet in spite of the- disease, . a,nd —we almost said —in spite of the doctors, the , lad is well to-day. And this is how it all came about. There is a moral in it, too. - but suppose we serve that up at the end of the story. All right, you nay. Very well, then. . .

It seems that this boy, George Westmoreland, had previously been a strong, healthy little chap, as all boys ought to be. But about the middle of last November —lß9l, that is—he wps taken down. The family couldn’t make out' what-..ailed him. He complained of a bad pain in the stomach, and vomited a quantity of yellowish green stuff. Presently the pain was so Sharp he couldn’t lie in bed, and they had, so his mother says, to apply fresh hot poultices one after another. The*"whites of his eyes turned . yellow, and his skin too. He was hot and feverish, and had to fight for his breath. • • -• Of coursb, his mother sent for a doctor, and the doctor said his young patient was suffering from inflammation, of the bowels. He gave medicines which, however, did no good, so far as the boy’s friends cguld see. " On.the contrary, he grew worse, and a second doctor was fetched. This medical gentleman differed from his predecessor, and gave out that George had an attack of rheumatic fever —- in. other words, acute rheumatism —a disease which no boy has any business with whatever. The treatment on this \ theory availed nothing ; George was worse. He now had a hacking cough, and his expectoration was so offensive that the people had to use disinfectants. He broke out into sweats, so heavy as to saturate the pillows. He could take no nouishment save a Jittle milk and lime water. He wore away to a skeleton, did the poor boy. He was nothing but skin and bone, and they had to lift him in and out of bed. Then he fell so ill he would not notice anyone in the room, and lay for hours never opening his eyes. Then came the time when a third doctor said he couldn’t possibly live. What happened after that the boy’s mother teHs. We give you her exact words: "In February last,” she says, “my husband, as a last resource, determined to try Mother Seigel’s Curative Syrup. After a few doses the boy’s breathing was easier, and he took food. In three days he was able - to sit up, and in a week’s time he was up and dressed. He gained flesh and strength every day, and is now able to go about. Sometimes I look at him and can hardly believe he is the same boy who was so recently at death’s door. Seigel’s Syrup saved his life. Yours truly (signed), Mrs Mary Westmoreland, 5, High street, Plumstead, London, April 27, 1892.” , Now, a half-a-dozen words. Little George had no bowel.inflammation, nor a single touch of rheumatism. That was the doctors’ professional guesswork. He had a sharp attack of biliousness and indigestion, of which Mother Seigel would have cured him long before had her medicine been appealed to. Here is the N moral, to conclude with: Learn what the true remedy for illness is, and usp-i&v&rst instead of last.