THE Housekeeper happened to hear, the other day, of a lad whom she will call Jotham, though that is not his name. Jotham has lived since he was a very little fellow with a kind couple, and he has helped on their farm and about their home in return for his clothing, board and education. They have given him good food in abundance, and have not asked him to work nearly so hard as they have always worked themselves. But now that he is nearly grown up, he is pale, hollow-chested, has a cough, and is apparently going rapidly into a decline.
"I am not surprised," said the Housekeeper to the friend who told her this. "I am only amazed that Jotham has lived so long and has been so well as he has. Slow poison would have killed me long before this, had I been in his place."
"What do you mean?" asked the friend.
"I mean that Jotham sleeps in a chamber under the roof, which has only one narrow window for ventilating purposes, and that window, winter or summer, is always shut. The air he breathes every night is pestilential. But the good woman, who is nursing him with cough syrups now, does not know that this condition of things is hurtful. She herself sleeps in an ill-ventilated room, and if she has a morning headache, traces it to any cause except the right one."
Where do you sleep? Where do your children sleep? Do you know that no child or young person should ever share the bed of an invalid or an aged person, under any circumstances of convenience or apparent necessity? Make some other arrangement than this. Where you sleep is a matter of great importance.—Christian at Work.