Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1853-04-27
APatch ON BON Knees.

A Patch ON Roth Knees.
The followingi is one Of the cleverest essays We
have met with for many day. Similar in style
it is not inferior to Franklin's best.
sWhenI was boy twas my fortune to breathe
for long time, what some writers term the brac.
ing air Of poverty. My mother,light lie the tur
upon the form which once enclosed her sweet and
gentle spirit, was what is called an ambitious wo.
man;for atqualiy which overturns thrones and
supplants dynasties, finds legitimate share in the
humblest abode that the shadows ofpoverty ever
darkened. The struggles between the wish to
keep up appearances and the pinching gripe OF
necessity produced endless shift and contrivances'
atwhich, if told, some would smile, and some, to
whom they would teach their own experience,
would sigh But let me not disturb the veil of
oblivion which shrouds from profane eyes the
hallowed mysteries of poverty
On one occasion, it was necessary to send me
on an errand to neighbor Of better circumstances
than ourselves and therefore it was necessary that
Ishould Represented in the best possible aspect
Greatpains were accordingly taken to give smart
appearance to my patched and dilapidated ward
robe, and to conceal the rents and chasm which
the envious tooth of time had made in them, and
by way of throwing over my equipment SAVIOR
and sprinkling ofgentility, my red and toll hard
ened hands were enclosed in an unfamiliar casing
of pair of gloves which had belonged to mother
in days when her years were fewer and her heart
was lighter.
sailed forth on my errand, and on my way
encountered much older and bigger boy, who
evidently belonged to a family who had all our
own dragging poverty, and none of our uprising
welth of spirit. His rags fairly futtered in the
breeze; his hat was constructed upon the most ap-
proved principles ofyentilation and his shoes from
their venerable antiquity. might have been deemed
apair of fossil shoes, the very ones in which
Shem shuf1ed into the ark. He was an impudent
varlet, with daredevil swagger in his gate, and
an apm as good as you" leer in his eyes; the very
whelp to throw dirt at we'll dressed horseman
because he was well dressed, at a boys rufHes,
because he was clean. AS soon as he saw me,
his eyes detected the practical inconsistencies
which characterized my costume, and taking me
by the shoulder, turning me round with no gentle
hand, and surveying me from head to foot, he
exclaimed with scornfnl laugh of derision, ga
patch on both knees and gloves on!''
I still recall the sting of wounded feeling
which shot through me at these words. To
parodize celebrated line by the immortal Tuscan.
"That day Iwore my gloves no. more,''
But the lesson, SO rudely enforced, sank deep
in my mind; and in after life have had frequent
occasion to make practical application of the
words of my ragged friend, when have observed
the ridiculous inconsistencies which so often mark
the conduct of mankind.
When, for instance, i see parents providing for
the orn amental education of their children fur
nishlng them with teachers of music, dancing and
drawing, but giving no thought to that moral and