At length I began to perceive a slight increase of muscular strength. I could work moderately a quarter of an hour or more, and yet walk home very comfortably. In about two months, I had strength enough to continue my labors several hours, in the course of a whole day, though not in succession--perhaps two in the forenoon and two in the afternoon. In about three months, I was, so far as I could perceive, completely restored. It is to be remarked and remembered that, during the whole three months, I never took the smallest particle of medicine, either solid or fluid. My simple course was to obey, in the most rigid and implicit manner, all known laws, physical and moral. It was my full belief at that time,--it is still my belief,--that conformity to all the Creator's laws is indispensable to the best of health, in every condition of human life, but particularly so when we are already feeble and have a tendency to consumption. When it became known to my neighbors, who saw me day after day, reeling to my garden or staggering home, that I refused to take any medicine, there was a very general burst of surprise, and, in some cases, of indignation. "Why," said they, "what does the man mean? He must be crazy. As he is going on he will certainly die of a galloping consumption. Any one that will act so foolishly almost _deserves_ to die." As soon as I found myself fairly convalescent, I returned gradually to all those practices on which I had so long relied as a means of fortifying myself, but which, since my _fall_, had been partially omitted. Among these was bathing, especially cold bathing. To the last, however, I returned very cautiously. Not for fear I should not be able to secure a reaction, but rather for fear Nature would have to spend more _vitality_ during the process than she could well afford to spare. I have known cases of the latter kind. An aged minister in Cleveland, Ohio, who had long followed the practice of cold bathing every morning, came to me in Dec. 1851, when the cold weather was very intense, and told me that though he could, with considerable effort, get up a reaction in his system after the bath, he was afraid it _cost_ too much. I advised him to suspend it a few weeks, which he did with evident advantage. There are, however, many other things to be done besides giving due attention to cold bathing, if we would harden ourselves fully against taking cold, to which I should be glad to advert were it not foreign to the plan I had formed, and the limits which, in this work, I have prescribed to myself. CHAPTER LXX. FREEZING OUT DISEASE. I am well acquainted with one man of Yankee origin, who formerly made it a practice to freeze out his colds, as he called it. It is certainly better to prevent them, as I have all along and always taught. But this man's story is somewhat amusing, and by way of relief from our more sober subject, I will very briefly relate it.