Page:The Road to Wellville (1926).djvu/59



OW often have we heard it said that great-grandmother knew nothing of vitamins and calories, she had thirteen children, did all her own cooking and spinning, and lived to a hale old age? Some did, and some didn’t! But it was grandmother’s closeness to nature, her ceaseless physical industry (not nervous effort), her kitchen garden, her whole grains from the nearby mill, her coarser, simpler food, that protected her health. Even if she did close the windows, the cold air came in at the cracks and down the fireplace, and in her day the houses weren’t steam heated!

She needed no gymnasium or “daily dozen,” because water was carried (not just turned on at the spigot), food was cooked at the crane in the fireplace or on the wood range (not on the electric or gas stove), her foot was busy at the spinning wheel!

She did not need to know about exercise and fresh air, and vitamins and coarse foods, and where to get her iron and lime. They were all forced upon her. She couldn’t escape them. The further we get from nature and simplicity, the more we need to know in order to live wisely.