My First Summer 



at this moment mutton seems the least de- 

 sirable of food, though of good quality. We 

 pick out the leanest bits, and down they 

 go against heavy disgust, causing nausea 

 and an effort to reject the offensive stuff. 

 Tea makes matters worse, if possible. The 

 stomach begins to assert itself as an inde- 

 pendent creature with a will of its own. 

 We should boil lupine leaves, clover, starchy 

 petioles, and saxifrage rootstocks like the 

 Indians. We try to ignore our gastric 

 troubles, rise and gaze about us, turn our 

 eyes to the mountains, and climb doggedly 

 up through brush and rocks into the heart 

 of the scenery. A stifled calm comes on, 

 and the day's duties and even enjoyments 

 are languidly got through with. We chew 

 a few leaves of ceanothus by way of lunch- 

 eon, and smell or chew the spicy monardella 

 for the dull headache and stomach-ache 

 that now lightens, now comes muffling 

 down upon us and into us like fog. At night 

 more mutton, flesh to flesh, down with it, 



