St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1872-03-29
From Scribner's Monthly for April.
The Boy John.
\ story Parents Can Read.

| NHtI Ildl WIS paving himself lobSt'
from monkey realm, unSophisticated
wisdom would have it that John should
he trained up in the way he ought to go.
We, of course. know better. In that
| tWiligh period of no steamboats,. no
female suffrage, no reforms, no town
meetings. no beer gardens, how should
they understand But in these happier
days when every boy can explore the
my StericS of IL normal school or drinking
cellar. solomon wisdom with respect
to the very tritiing matter of Johns ed
ucatiou will hardly do.
Solomon built il house. But who now
would build after that old Hebrew :
drafting? DO we not have modern i'm
| provcmcntS And 50 should not the
boy John have the benefit of modern
Improvements? In old time it WAS.
Train up child in the way ne should
Co." on the ground that being trained
i'll it he would he likely to stick to it.
But i'll this riperagc we have deeper
| philosophy: Let nature alone to work
ont its own way do not restrain it,
We have learned that pent-up things,
such as steam and reforms. are danger
ous. They should he allowed to blow
off. And so the child has il steam which
he should blow Oft. He has fires of
youth which ought to he burned out. e.
and not Smothered to char on his life
Having wayward disposition incident
to youth, he should he suffered to work
ii of and he rid of it, so as to settle
down gracefully into sober manhood.
| John Is an awkward, restless, tidgetV
fellow, whose chief end is to torture the
cat and tear clothes. His parents con-
gratllate themselves that their hoy is
growing up under the hallowed intu-
enceS of IL Christian home. What is it.
then, that marks Johns home us hallow-
ed and Christian ! When the toll and
drive of the day are ended, and the
evening hours begin to throw their hush
over the household, what is there in
living-room or parlor, got ready by IL
parents Christian thoughttulncSs. for
making the closing hours of day, the
happy, the joyous, the loved ones of all
the twcnty-four! John has been in for
dinner, eaten it, and gone out again
| He has been in for his supper, eaten
that, and now, after doing the last
| things of work-ti (for John happens
very often to be Il boy who knows what
work isl he comes in weary i'll body.
= y
for something ;-somc recreation. some
JOY, some sport. some play. laugh, frolic.
unhcnding of some kind. to relieve the
hldeouS tedium of all tread, tread, tread
III the mill of toll. The mother. having
put her house i'll order for the night,
takes some odd piece of work-sewing.
knitting, or crocheting and worries ont
the fag-ends of weary flesh and lamp
light. The father takes his evening
paper, or his evening browse. or both
of them, rolling i'll an eaSy-chair or tip
ped up iii one that is not easy, himself
silent, dull, dismal.
But the boy Jnhn,-what of him ?
| What shall he do He does not know
how to knit OF crochet he does not
care for the newspaper. What are
politics and Congress and Tammany to
himl What fun for him i'll Beecher'S
sermon or the Farmers Club? He looks
up and around. Not an eye or countc-
nance shows one ray of sympathy with
his uneasiness. pitching and rolling now
to the hrim. He looks up on the mam-
tie: nothing there. He looks up to the
clock; nothing there. He looks round
on the walls. up ut the ceiling; nothing
for him there. He looks ont of the
|
| mlimIncr of something for him out there {:
| though nothing under that roof, within
those walls. around that stove, which
the world calls his home. 50 John Yields
up sigh, IL stretch. and Il Nawn. and
out he goes for sympathy int" the dark
ness. The mother works ON. The fi-
ther reads and doZcS ON. The boy Is
now beginning to 90 on i'll the WAY he
| likes to go. Other boys. fleeing out
from other such Christian homes, or
from homes that are not Christian. meet
him on the street They minglc their
diScontent> and sympathicS till, with
the leap and dash of Young life, they
come together into Il plot for mischief,
or into the chamber where billiards are
played, or into the cellar where enter
tainmcmt is for man and brdSt: oI any
where up or down where life and un-
bending for the restless filters of youth
can hc found, and where the evening
hours are not spent i'll the dullncSS OF
knitting and doing.
John is Young. Ills tastes are I'M
formed. His feelings are very far from
being refined. In fact he is Il little gross
III his sympathics lie wants amust-
mcnt. Every bone in his body aches
for recreation, for play, fun. laughter
He does not caIc-hc has never been
taught to carc-what the fun is, if only
it will give reliefto the iidget that sting,
him. Not at all refined, he will go fol
what he wants where others 20. And
going where others go. he finds the
hunger OF his nature coarsely met just
as tainted meat will fill the hunger of {;
starving man-in the low revelry, vii,
stories, unclean mirth of drinking
and saloons The boy does not dis
criminate very closely, and to the long
ing of his crude appetite the entertain
ment of these places is infinitely better
than any he ever could find in that place
which he has been taught to speak of IL
home. For eating and sleeping anG
getting his clothes mended, he feels thai
no place can he equal to Christian
home: but for a good time, for passing
dull evening hour, for learning some
thing new, for words of cheer, for pro
fesSions of sympathy, for those genia
ways which boy does love, and whicl
any boy but Uriah Heep must love
John will tell even the minister to hi:
; face that home is nothing to il stree
corner, or billiard room with the at
tachment of beer shop.
Well. by and by, just before the clocl
strikes ten, the father wakes from hi:
= d"ze, the spectacles falling and the pa
per sliding upon the floor, and, looking
, round with bewildered gaze, asks
NV here is John -
Where Is he? Why, for want of bet
: ter instruction, he is out practicing ou
= modern plan of training himself up il