“Nonsense! You little ruffian, you could wear sandpaper on that skin of yours. Don’t talk to me, or next time I see you without your overcoat I’ll order a hair shirt for you.”
“I’ve never thought much about the children’s clothes, except to change between the seasons,” confessed Mrs. Clyde. “I supposed that was all there is to it.”
“Not wholly. I once knew a man who died from changing his necktie.”
“Did he put on a red tie with a pink shirt?” interestedly queried Manny, who had reached the age where attire was becoming a vital interest.
“He changed abruptly from the big puff-tie which he had worn all winter, and which was a regular chest-protector, to a skimpy bow, thereby exposing a weak chest and getting pneumonia quite naturally. Yet he was ordinarily a cautious old gentleman, and shifted the weight of his underclothes by the calendar—a rather stupid thing to do, by the way.”
“On the first of November,” began Grandma Sharpless severely—
“Yes, I know,” cut in the Health Master. “Your whole family went into flannels whether the thermometer was twenty or seventy. And we’ve seen it both, more than once on that date.”
“What harm did it ever do them?”
“Bodily discomfort. In other words, lessened vitality. Think how much nervous wear is suffered by a child itching and squirming in a scratchy suit of heavy flannels on a warm day.”
“Children can’t be changing from one weight to another every day, can they?” asked Mrs. Clyde.