Letter to Editor: Raleigh, Grant County, ND
January 1925

Dear Editor:

I was thinking that now that all my work is done, I should pick up my pen and write to the Nordlicht, especially since the black ink artists never get done printing.

Emil, you have said I should continue corresponding. I was in a quandary of a subject to write about, when a fellow dropped by who had just come by airplane from the old country town of Schlirf. You know the place. He told me about his train trip to Schlirf. One cannot take a dog into the compartments. There are special dog boxes on the train; and, right away the conductor informed him of the facility. In order to entice his dog, Sport, to crawl into the dog box, he crawled in first and called for the dog. This was all in vain as the dog remained outside and barked, as the train whistled and chugged off. The conductor slammed the door shut and my friend traveled the entire distance to Schlirf in the train dog box. Sport took position in front of the dog box barking as if to say what a dumb idea it was to crawl into that box.

In truth, Sport is not a dumb critter. He couldn’t speak as we humans do, but he could sit and fetch, jump over a stick, roll over and whatever else a person could ask of a dog. I have always been a good master though. Sport got his share of yummy cutlet bones. My how he could beg and make ado for those!

There was only one occasion for me to get mad enough to kill that dog. It is kind of embarrassing, not exactly a tale for the delicate ears of ladies. But, if I relay the tale in a delicate manner, even ladies should not take offense.

It happened last July. I had some liver problems, or perhaps gallstones. At any rate, the food did not taste like it should anymore, and I was always tired, like my bones weighed a ton. One day I had had enough and went to see the doctor for an examination to find out what mysterious maladies were working on my constitution to put me, old pharmacist Braunbach, down. The doctor felt my pulse, prodded and probed a little and came to the conclusion that there was nothing drastically wrong with me, aside from a few pounds of extra baggage. He told me to cut down on real rich foods and perhaps consider a treatment at the saline and mineral water sanitarium in Schlirf. There, the famous water of the Bonifacius well tackles any metabolism and gets it back to work, whether a person is well or not. Besides, a little vacation there would get me out of my pharmacy and away from the pharmaceutical smells and into God’s wonderful nature, etcetera, etcetera. He had a point there. I had not been on a vacation in four years.

When I heard that an acquaintance of mine, merchant Moder, was going there too, I decided to go ahead with that plan. I talked myself into deserving four weeks of vacation at the famous spring. I packed my bags and traveled together with merchant Moder, as we had agreed upon a few days before at the Einhorn (Unicorn) Hotel. Moder seemed to be pleased to have a travel companion as well.

Once we arrived in Schlirf, I started my treatments right away. And gentlemen, I can assure you, if you ever have any problem in the liver region, the Bonifacius Spring is certainly the answer. A few glasses of the spring water in the morning and one has an appetite for breakfast. Instead of one roll, one is tempted to have four, and lunch tastes even better. I was impressed with that spring. I had my first two glasses early, at six in the morning. I wandered about the beautiful park afterward. Good thing, though, that the sanitarium was only one or two hundred paces at most from the park. Because once that mineral water does its job, one has to find the local facilities in a hurry. At my first time, I actually had to break into a gallop to reach the little house, regardless of the perplexed strollers there in the park. After my session, I took a few more glasses of that beautiful water. My treatments for the day were in essence completed, aside from the special diet.

On Sunday, tomorrow, I would put on my best finery since a concert was planned in the park for eleven a.m. The band began practicing fairly early and I decided to go for a stroll in the nearby woods after finishing my water. If push would come to shove, I could always get rid of the spring’s effects out there in the pines. It cannot be calculated when these effects will set in, only that it happens instantly. So, at the worst instance, I would be out in God’s great nature where a man is a man and allowed to be, as the immortal Doctor Faustus proclaimed so fittingly.

Plans made, I retired for the night. I continue my story next time.

So he left me and now, Emil, I have a question for you. “Why does the tailor sit on the table when he is working?”

Kind regards,
Ignatz Gross