Skinny

“ He planned to try its effect on Carolyn June while the others were away. If it did not produce results he would slip back to the bunk-house before they returned and change again to his normal dress.
When Skinny stepped into the room he was fully conscious of his unusual appearance. The morning was warm and he had not put on a coat. The shirt billowed over his shoulders, arms and chest in a snowy cloud. It seemed impossible to Skinny that anything in all the world could be so vividly, persistently white as the cloth that literally enveloped the upper half of his body. ”

“ Skinny, due to his fighting instinct, settled one hundred yards to the north and on the same spur. Buck lay hidden behind an enormous bowlder eight hundred yards to the northeast of Skinny, and the same distance southeast of Buck was Red Connors, who was crawling up the bed of an arroyo. Billy, nursing his arm, lay in front of the horses, and Pete, from his position between Billy and Hopalong, was crawling from rock to rock in an endeavor to get near enough to use his Colts, his favorite and most effective weapons. ”

“ We scattered, like Skinny told us, and gradually worked out from the center, crawling on our hands and knees, and watching every inch of the ground and the bushes.
We didn't get any trace at all until I found a potato. Then Skinny, who was a little ahead of me and at one side, gave a groan and yelled:
"Here's my wishbone. They've eaten all my fried chicken." [38]
It always makes Skinny mad to have somebody eat his fried chicken. ”

“ A meagre, skinny arm is objectionable not only because it offends against all the conditions of Beauty—plump roundness, softness, fresh colour, smoothness, gradual tapering to the wrist—but because it is associated with the aspect of old age and disease ”

“ Husbands, lovers, parents, and friends frequently point out that you don"t look good this way and exhort you to put on weight. Most people think pleasantly plump is healthy.
Skinny men, especially those who had lost a lot of weight during an illness, are pressured by associates to put on weight to prove that they are healthy. ”

“ Sixty yards separated them—fifty—forty—thirty—"G—d A'mighty!" whispered Skinny, his nails cutting into his calloused palms. Red only quivered. Twenty-five—twenty. Then the Weasel slowed down, crouching a little, and his swinging hands kept closer to his thighs. Bill, though moving slowly, stood erect and did not change his pace. Perspiration beaded the faces of the watchers on the cliff and they almost stopped breathing. This was worse than they had expected—forty yards would have been close enough to start shooting. "It's a pure case of speed now," whispered Red, suddenly understanding. ”

“ We got our first settin up exercises today. Believe you me, they are more settin down than they are settin up. All the boobs have to lie on there backs, put there laigs in the air, and move 'em like he wuz ridin a bicycle. All to once Skinny Shaner stopped. The drill Sarge stepped over and deemanded to know why he quit. "Im coastin" pipes Skinny, "I always do a little coastin when I ride a wheel." Believe you me if Skinny ever tries to ride all of them wheels in his head at one and the same time, he have to do a considerable lot of coastin. ”

“ I never seemed to notice it when yer was bundled up in clothes; that's the way with the best of us, we never appears to advantage in togs. It's the skinny women with waists the size of their ankles, what no hartist would so much as look at; or them females as is bundles of fat what wouldn't look human if they wasn't packed up tidy into corsets—they're the sort what looks best in their clothes. ”

“ I could hardly support my own weight; my legs were trembling with the burden; sweat broke out over my whole body; the rays of light beat down upon me fiercely, overpoweringly....
Desperately, I quickly turned the dial until the two red marks coincided. A great weight, soft and enveloping, seemed to drop upon me. The senses of sight and hearing and feeling all left me. ”

“ The thin sister can pad out the angles, put frills and puffy things over the bony places, but alas for the fat one! She gets into clothes that are skin-tight, and she draws in her corset string until it snaps and gives at every breath and sneeze, and even then she does not look graceful and pretty, for the fat—like secrets—will out, and it rolls over and around like the little bumps and humps in a pudding bag. ”

“ Pearlie Schultz used to sit on the front porch summer evenings and watch the couples stroll by, and weep in her heart. A fat girl with a fat girl's soul is a comedy. But a fat girl with a thin girl's soul is a tragedy. ”

“ Out of policy you strive to obey for a while longer, but every muscle in your eager body rebels. You twist and toss; you stick up one knee, and then the other, and then both at once; and finally a leg dangles to the floor over the outer edge of your unhappy bed. ”

“ Fat sides and bald heads are the symbols of music, innocence, and meek submission. O! ladies listen to the words of wisdom! Cultivate the society of fat men and bald-headed men, for "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." And the fat women, God bless their old sober sides—they are "things of beauty, and a joy forever." ”

“ Her waist is small, yet so willowy and sinuous that it cannot be trammeled in those unyielding ribs of steel and bone in which women love to girdle themselves. For her slimness she is tall, perhaps, what you might think a little too tall until you stood by her side and saw that her freedom of movement had deceived you. ”

“ O my friends with thin skins,—and here I protest that a thick skin is a fault not to be forgiven in a man or a nation, whereas a thin skin is in itself a merit, if only the wearer of it will be the master and not the slave of his skin,—O, my friends with thin skins, ye whom I call my cousins and love as brethren, will ye not forgive me these harsh words that I have spoken? ”

“ Can you conceive a fat ghost, Doctor—a fat, unclean ghost, who has clanked around, dragging his ball and chain until the sweat pours down his fat face—a malodorous sweat—a sweat that physically offends while it frightens? ”

“ The stout woman improves her position by omission rather than addition. “Every little bit added to what you have makes just a little bit more” is all right for Scotch pennies, but not for one who is working to look 30 or 40 pounds lighter. Be slim by being trim; be attractive by being immaculate; and strive with all your might for grace, ease, and personal charm. Never yield to a misuse of color, line, or fabric. Never give up in your determination to dress for slenderness. You must admit right now that it is far more interesting than diet and much more effective. ”

“ I was slim; and a dull blue gown, belted just under my arms and puffed at the shoulders, with an aureole of dull blue hat over it, made me look nice in Julian’s eyes or I never should have had the courage to face the street. When a person is slim and lithe, however, her daring clothes have not the aggressive grossness of a fat woman’s daring clothes. ”

“ We have already spoken of the aid which can be given to the corpulent lady in the decline of life. Let not those, however, who suffer from the opposite evil suppose that there is no aid for them. The stooping of the body, or the straight, inelegant appearance which characterizes the lady who is what is generally termed "thin," may be as easily corrected. ”

“ The girls always have to carry me ashore, one holding me by the hair and one by the boots. Happily, I am so emaciated that my weight doesn’t distress them. I pick up flesh in a day or two, and then my health is stupendous—as at present. ”

“ I cast a pitying eye at other men, deep of girth and purple of face, waddling down the platform, and as I scudded on past them I would say to myself that after all there was a tremendous difference between being obese and being merely well fleshed out. ”

“ It’s what I said to a man only yesterday, that thin ones are bad ones, and there isn’t any one could be thinner than you are yourself.”
“The reason you say that,” said the Thin Woman calmly, “is because you are fat and you have to tell lies to yourself to hide your misfortune, and let on that you like it. There is no one in the world could like to be fat, and there I leave you, ma’am. ”

“ A roar of laughter followed this announcement.
"What?" asked Frank; "was it Cupid, then, who sneezed approval to our love, Jack, as he did to that of Dido and Æneas?"
But Jack went on desperately.
"I was in the next room, drinking of my beer. I couldn't help that, could I? And then I heard her name; and I couldn't help listening then. Flesh and blood couldn't."
"Nor fat either!"
"No, nor fat, Mr. Cary. Do you suppose fat men haven't souls to be saved as well as thin ones, and hearts to burst, too, as well as stomachs? Fat! Fat can feel, I reckon, as well as lean. ”

“ The invisible fat lady with the baby has, in the meantime, wedged the girl right under the man's shoulder, and his arm and hand, in circling back, circle naturally about her. She, poor little soul, seems not to know what has happened. Her tired head sinks like a weary bird—sinks on his breast. ”

“ Likes Warm Rooms
¶ Love of comfort—especially such things as warm rooms and soft beds—is so deeply imbedded in the fiber of this type that he has ever to face a fight with himself which the rest of us do not encounter. This sometimes leads the excessively corpulent person to relax into laziness and slovenliness. An obese individual sometimes surprises us, however, by his ambition and immaculateness. ”

“ Dressing up to your weight is good psychology for it keeps you alert. You hold your head a little higher and grow naturally to observe that essential rule of standing always just as tall as you possibly can. Also, your mental alertness is a safeguard against additional fat. I never knew it to fail—a definite interest in clothes, in looking one’s best, keeps the fat away. ”

“ How did you tip the scales last time you weighed, and have you noticed any trouble at all with your heart?
"I weigh one hundred and thirty-four pounds, and I've got to melt and freeze and starve off that four," I answered, ignoring the heart question and also the question of producing this book. Wonder what he would do if I gave it to him to read just as it is?
"How about the heart?" he persisted, and I may have imagined the smile in his eyes, for his mouth was purely professional. Anyhow, I lowered my lashes down on to my cheeks and answered experimentally:
"Sometimes it hurts." ”

“ And if there is any phase of human enjoyment, any part of life, any occupation, avocation, divertisement, pleasure or pain where the fat man has the better of it in any regard, I failed to discover it in the twenty years during which I looked like the rear end of a hack and had all the bodily characteristics of a bale of hay. ”

“ As Betty climbed the stair, it came to her that it would be a pleasanter world if people would choose their words in speaking to overgrown girls—to fat people, in short—just as they did for the lame and blind. ”

“ After several more sodas, concoctions which up till recently I have despised as injurious, I guess I will have filled out to my usual dimensions around the waist line, but when I consider the long days of womanhood stretched out before me in the future I will admit it is with a sinking not only of the waist, but also of the heart. ”

“ I would have you play a game at mumchance with your trusty fat man, while I muster your three hundred men-at-arms and swear them to my service. If your lordship’s grace will not babble so, and you will request that fat fellow whose bulk is so large as a bag, who is so undecent in his appearance as any sow that grouts in a kennel, if you will request him not to brawl so much, you will be able to pass the time of day agreeably, and without that excitement that is so inclement to the mind. ”

“ In another half hour fat babies fell asleep where they sat, their little fat hands holding tight to some goody. Boys old enough to wonder about the contrariness of things mortal looked sadly at the still inviting tables and marveled that a thoughtful and farseeing Providence should have made a boy's stomach in so careless and penurious a fashion. ”

“ WHAT YOUR POSTURE CAN DO FOR YOU Learn to stand up straight like a soldier. Most fat women seem to have the idea that they ought to “scrooch” down and disguise their size in that way. But in this campaign to dress and be thin the back-bone must be definitely straight. Don’t hunch yourself up and look like a pillow tied in the middle. ”

“ My kind and valued medical adviser is not a doctor for obesity, but stands on the pinnacle of fame in the treatment of another malady, which, as he well knows, is frequently induced by the disease of which I am speaking, and I most sincerely trust most of my corpulent friends (and there are thousands of corpulent people whom I dare not so rank) may be led into my tramroad. To any such I am prepared to offer the further key of knowledge by naming the man. ”

“ A thousand hands to work to make modish clothes for the perfect 36, while only a dozen in proportion are working for us big folk! So it is easy to see why we must learn for ourselves what we can and cannot wear, what to emphasize and subdue. “We cannot eat our cake and have it too,” is a line familiar to us all. We can’t enjoy our pounds unless we work to dress them so that their number is not even surmised, let alone accurately guessed. ”

“ Despite the contrary opinions of the early fathers of the church, I hold that the mortification of the flesh is really based upon the flesh itself, where there is too much of it for beauty and grace, not merely upon the process employed in getting rid of it.
Ask any fat man—or better still, any formerly fat man—if I am not correct. But do not ask a fat woman unless, as in the case of possible fire at a theater, you already have looked about you and chosen the nearest exit. Taken as a sex, women are more likely to be touchy upon this detail where it applies to themselves than men are. ”

“ If I could not actually take off thirty pounds, I would make myself look thirty pounds lighter in the eyes of others.
And, after all, is that not what we are most concerned about? Plumpness is more often a sign of good health than bad. We could be supremely happy with our extra weight if 5only we could look slender. ”