ny larger--and all the time I knew I was. I even went so far
as to stop getting on the scales; and when anybody--as almost everybody
did--said, "Why, you're getting bigger, ain't you?" I always replied:
"No, I think not. I stick along about two hundred and thirty-five
pounds."

A year ago last summer I went up into the mountains, where I usually go
for my fun. I had noticed a shortness of breath and a wheeziness in
previous summers, and had felt my heart pounding pretty hard; but that
summer I noticed these things acutely. I couldn't get any air to
breathe. My heart pounded like a pneumatic riveter. Any little
exercise tired me; and when in the lowlands in hot weather I was the
perspiring marvel and the most uncomfortable as well as the sloppiest
person you ever saw. It was fierce!

I was doing a good deal of walking in those days--had to burn up the
fuel I was taking into my body. Also, I noticed it was mighty hard to
keep awake after dinner unless I got out into the air and kept moving.
I felt well enough and the doctors said I was organically all right. I
kept informed on those points--but I was fat! Also, though I lied to
myself, I knew I was getting fatter.

CHAPTER III

FACING THE TISSUE

On New Year's Day, 1911, I weighed myself. I don't know why, for I
hadn't been on a scale for two or three years. I set the weight at two
hundred and thirty-five and it bounded up like a rubber ball; so I shoved
it along to two hundred and forty and it still stayed up in the air.
When I got a balance I found I weighed two hundred and forty-seven
pounds. I was amazed! Also, I was scared; for it instantly occurred to
me that if I had gone up to two hundred and forty-seven in two or three
years from two hundred and thirty-five I should keep on going up if my
manner of living didn't change--and that presently I should weigh three
hundred!

That two hundred and forty-seven pounds was a facer. I was forced to
admit to myself that I was fat, disgustingly fat--too fat; and that I
should get fatter! So I sat down and looked the situation in the eye. I
recounted all my former efforts to get thin and discarded them one by
one. I knew myself, and knew the ordinary diet proposition and the
ordinary exercise proposition were not for me. I knew I was wheezy and
that my heart was getting choked with fat; that there were great folds of
it on me, and that it was up to me to get rid of it or quit and wait for
the inevita