he pain gets so
bad that they cannot bear it any longer.

That morning, I thought I never should have got dressed; stooping and
fastening things do make you so very bad. I was very late, and
Grandmamma was beginning to scold me, but when she saw I had got a
headache she didn't--she only said I looked like a washed-out pocket
handkerchief; and when I could not eat any breakfast, she said I must
have a dose of rhubarb and magnesia, and as she had not got any
rhubarb left, she sent Jael up to Dr. Brown's to get some.

I did not like having to take rhubarb and magnesia; but I was very
glad to get rid of Jael for a bit, though I knew she would hate me for
having had to take a message at an odd time. It was her shaking the
room when she brought in the urn, and knocking the tongs into the
fender with her dress as she went by, that had made me not able to eat
any breakfast.

Just as she was starting, Grandmamma beckoned to her to come back, and
told her to call at the barber's, and tell him to come up in the
afternoon to "thin" my hair.

My hair is very thick. I brush as much out as I can; but I think it
only gets thicker and thicker. Grandmamma says she believes that is
what gives me so many headaches, and she says it is no use cutting it
shorter, for it always is kept cut short; the only way is to thin it,
that is, cutting lumps out here and there down to the roots. Thinning
does make less of it; but when it grows again it is very difficult to
keep tidy, which makes Jael say she "never see such a head, it's all
odds and ends," and sometimes she adds--"inside _and_ out." Margery
can imitate Jael exactly.

When Jael came back, she said Dr. Brown would step down and see me
himself. So he came.

Then he felt my pulse and asked me what sort of a night I had had, and
I was obliged to tell him, and Grandmamma was very much vexed, and
made me tell the whole truth, and she said I did not deserve any pity
for my headaches when I brought them on myself, which is true.

I think it was being vexed with me that made her vexed with Dr. Brown,
when he said rhubarb and magnesia would not do me any good. She said
she liked a regular system with the health of young people; and when
she and her six sisters were girls they were physicked with perfect
regularity; they were bled in the spring, and the fall of the leaf;
and had their hair thinned and their teeth taken out, once a quarter,
by the advice of their excellent friend and local pr