HOW TO GET STRONG
while the pitchfork or rake never rested from noon till sunset. Breakfast was served at five-thirty; dinner at eleven; supper at four; and a generous bowl of bread-and-milk—or two bowls, if you wanted them—at nine o'clock, just before bedtime, with plenty of spring-water between meals; while the fare itself was good and substantial, just what you would find on any well-to-do farmer's table. And such an appetite; and such sleep! Solomon must have tried some similar adventure when he wrote that "the sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much." Well, when we returned to college and got on the scales again; the one hundred and forty-three pounds at starting had somehow become a hundred and fifty-six! And with them such a grip, and such a splendid feeling! We have rowed many a race since; but there was as hard work done by some of that little squad, on that old mountain-farm, as any man in our heat ever did; and there was not much attention paid to any one's training rules either.
It is notorious, among those used to training for athletic contests, that thin men, it judiciously held in, and not allowed to do too much work, generally "train up," or gain decidedly in weight; almost as much, in fact, as the fleshy ones lose.
Now, were the object simply to train up as much as possible, unusual care could be taken to insure careful and deliberate eating, with a generous share of the fat and flesh-making sorts of food; and quiet rest always for a while after each meal, to aid the digestive organs at their work. Slow, deep, abdominal breathing is a great ally to this latter process; indeed, works direct benefit to many of the vital organs, and so to the whole man. All the sleep the man can possibly take at night
156
