Thus I beheld her one wintry day, and
wondered greatly what she was at. When I came home from school at night,
through a strangely permeated atmosphere, I beheld the clarifier
simmering on the stove.
Grandpa already stood shivering over the fire. He smiled when I came in,
but it was a faint and deathly smile--the smile of one who has returned,
per force, to weak, defenceless infancy.
Grandma pressed me kindly to partake. I preferred to keep what ills I
had, rather than fly to others that I knew not of. So I gently and firmly
declined. But for several days in succession, Grandpa was made the victim
of this ghastly remedy.
His sufferings went beyond the power of mad expostulation to express, and
came nigh to produce upon his features the aspect of a saintly
resignation.
Never shall I forget his appearance during this clarifying period--his
occasional faint and fleeting attempts at wit--his usually hopeless and
world-weary air. The wonder to me was that he did not then enter upon a
celestial state of existence, being eminently fitted to go, as far as the
attenuation of his mortal frame was concerned. It was at this time that I
wrote home that I had never had such an appetite before in my life as now
in Wallencamp (which, in one sense, I felt to be perfectly true); that
the food was of a most remarkable variety (which I also felt to be true);
but that it was rather difficult to procure oranges and the like.
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