WOODS MEDICINE 129 



I know that this compound will cure if you begin 

 taking it early enough along, I should say, from 

 the Fifth to the Eighth Grades. It is a very diffi- 

 cult dose to take at any age, but it is almost impos- 

 sible for grown-ups to swallow it ; for they have so 

 many things to do, or think they have, that they 

 can't sit still a whole hour anywhere a terrible 

 waste of time! And then they have been talking for 

 so many years that to stop for a whole hour might 

 kill them, who knows ! And they have been work- 

 ing nervously with their hands so long that their 

 thumbs will twiddle, and to sleep they will go the 

 minute they sit down, in spite of themselves. It is 

 no use to give this medicine to grown-ups. They 

 are what Dr. Wood Chuck calls " chronics " hope- 

 less burners who will never sit down upon a stump, 

 who, when the Golden Chariot comes for them, will 

 stand up and drive all the way to heaven. 



However, I am not giving this medicine to grown- 

 ups, but to you. Of course you will make a bad face 

 over it, too ; for, young or old, it is hard to sit still 

 and even harder to keep still I mean not to talk. 

 I have closely watched four small boys these sev- 

 eral years now, and I never knew one of them to 

 sit still for a whole hour at home not once in 

 his whole life! And as for his tongue! he might 

 tuck that into his cheek, hold it down between his 

 teeth, crowd it back behind his fist no matter. 

 The tongue is an unruly member. But let these four 



