THE CANDY-FLAVORED MEDICINE

By Dr. Robert E. Plucker 

 

"Chocolate-flavored medicine"

My little sister, almost eleven yours younger than me was just able to walk a little, but could speak only a few words when this story takes place.  On this particular bitter cold morning she had wondered into Mom and Dad’s warm bedroom.  In one of the dresser drawers Mom had hidden some Ex-Lax (a laxative), which is a nice chocolate-flavored medicine.  A tiny amount of it probably wouldn’t hurt anyone, but a lot of it would have you running to the bathroom many times in an hour, and your stomach would hurt a lot.  I suppose that a whole box of it could perhaps kill a one-year-old baby.  Anyhow, when Mom found her sweet little baby girl alone in the bedroom next to the open dresser drawer she thought surely little sister had eaten it all; she must have; it was just like chocolate candy!  Such a fright she had!

She ran to call my Dad into the house from his work outside in the cold and snow (I think he had been feeding the cows) and told him that we had to get little sister to the doctor RIGHT NOW!  Well, that seems easy enough, but it was about fifteen or twenty degrees below zero that day and my Dad knew that his 1937 Dodge car would never start when it was that cold.  But he had to try anyhow of course, and the started just went aw-----waw-----aw-----waw, so slowly that it was impossible for the engine to catch on and run.  That meant that the car would have to be towed to start it (you can do this only with a car that does not have an automatic shift).  We did not have a telephone in those days so it was not possible to call the doctor and ask him to come out to the farm.

Dad had a big powerful Rock Island tractor at that time, and we would like to have used it to tow the car.  But the tractor had to be hand-cranked and neither my Dad nor I had the strength to move the crank fast enough to start the engine.  You may not know that when it is very cold, the oil in the engine gets stiffer and stiffer until finally the engine can hardly be turned by anything.  The Model T truck was possible, but we couldn’t crank that one fast enough either.  This left only horses to tow the car.

The horses, four of them, were out in the farthest back pasture so my Dad had to run after them and chase them home and into the barn where we could control them and put the harness on them so that they could be hitched to the car.  Of course they didn’t want to come and it must have been an hour of chasing before we finally got them close enough to the barn to get them to think about the oats that we had already put in their feed boxes.  Finally they went in and we were able to get them into harness and ready to pull the car.

We hitched them to the car with a log chain and I was to drive the horses, walking alongside them, while Dad was in the car working with the gearshift lever and the clutch to get the engine turning over.  So off we started!  The horses started suddenly, jerking the chain, and since it was so dreadfully cold, the chain broke and of course the car did not move.  I had to hold the horses while my Dad searched for a repair link to put the chain back together.  It took him a long time to find it in the jumble of his tool shed, and my ears and cheeks were getting frozen.  My thumbs were freezing too, even though I had thick mittens on.  I couldn’t feel my feet, they were so cold.  Finally he got the chain fixed, and we were ready to try it again.

Dad was in the car, ready to work the gearshift and clutch; I tried to start the horses very gently so as to not jerk the chain again.  So, slowly, the car began to move, and the horses started to speed up.  Soon I was running along behind and to one side, about as fast as I could go.  Then Dad put the Dodge in gear, let out the clutch, and the engine had to turn over fast.  It started, faltered, quit, then started again with my Dad doing everything he could think of to keep it running long enough to get it hot enough to run by itself.  Triumph!  Now the car was running smoothly, so I unhooked the horses and put them in the barn to enjoy their oats.

Then Mom had baby sister all ready, wrapped up warmly to go to the doctor.  Off we went to Dr. Valkenaar in Chancellor.  Mom told him what had happened, that she thought baby sister had eaten all the Ex-Lax, and she was terribly afraid of what might happen.  Then he wanted to know how long it had taken to get baby sister to his office; how long had it been since she had swallowed the medicine.  After all the trouble trying to start the car, start the tractor, start the truck, catch the horses, fix the break in the chain, tow the car, and finally drive to the doctor’s office, it had been at least two and a half hours.

“Well,” said Dr. Valkenaar, “if it has really been more than two hours, and she is not sick or dead yet, she surely will not get sick at all, and I’m sure that if you go home and really search for the medicine, you’ll find it somewhere.  I’m sure this little girl didn’t take it.”
 

"still in its box"

Sure enough, when we got home, Mom found the Ex-Lax, still in its box, on the floor under the bed.  But that wasn’t much comfort for my frozen nose, ears, cheeks, thumbs and feet – not to mention the agony my Dad must have gone through!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos, thankx to Google:
BARS:  NCH00050.jpg - fdb.rxlist.com  -  BOX:  Ex%20Lax.jpg  -  collectingproject.blogspot.com