THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD
pounds to a hundred and sixty, or a clean gain of fifteen pounds. Or (see Appendix VI.) for Maclaren's man, fully twenty-eight years old, who, in seven months and nineteen days, made sixteen pounds; or (Appendix VII.) for his youth of sixteen, who in just one year increased his weight full twenty-one pounds!
These facts certainly show pretty clearly whether sensible bodily exercise, taken regularly, and aimed at the weak spots, will not tell, and tell pretty rapidly, on the thin man wanting to stouten, and tell, too, in the way he wants.
It will make one eat heartily, it will make him sleep hard and long. Every ounce of the food is now digested; and the long sleep is just what he needed. Indeed, if, after a hearty dinner, a man would daily take a nap; and later in the day enough hard work to make sure of being thoroughly tired when bedtime came; he would doubtless find the flesh coming in a way to which he was a stranger. Many thin persons do not rest enough. They are constantly on the go; and the lack of phlegm in their make-up rather increases this activity; though they do not necessarily accomplish more than those who take care to sit and lie still more.
The writer, at nineteen, spent four weeks on a farm behind the Catskills, in Delaware County, New York. It was harvest-time, and, full of athletic ardor, and eager to return to college the better for the visit, we took a hand with the men. All the farm-hands were uniformly on the field at six o'clock in the morning; and it would average nearly or quite eight at night before the last load was snugly housed away in the mow. It was sharp, hard work all day long, with a tough, wiry, square-loined fellow in the leading swath all the morning. But follow him we were bound to, or drop;
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