The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1875-02-25
Tom.
The New York Tribune has the fol-


holiday, just as unwillingly as when,
200 years ago, the melancholy Jaques
made him immortal. His morning face
does not shine nowadays, however ;
there are black dabs of burnt cork upon
it, after the minstrel performances
which he and the other fellows had last
night. They tone with a fine fitness
with limp shirt collar and unlaced.
muddy shoes. The American school
boy does not whine either he shows
his inexorable prejudice against learn
ing and authority by banging his slate
against the hall walls, dashing his Caesar
at the pet poodle; he beats a tantara
at his brother Percy's door (ssIeep) after
last nights opera annd supper at Del
mOnico's, tumbles over Tot on the
stairs, gives her a bearish hug, and goes
out, slamming the door, and down the
street, not creeping by sny means, but
shouting ont, "The fox jumped over
the parsons gate" or other " chaste
aria" stopping to talk to the police.
man, with whom he is on friendly
terms, to follow fre-engine down the
next street, or to swarm with hundred
OF his congeners about dog fight or a
procession. The house falls into a
blissful lapse of silense as soon as he is
out of it; the late sleepers turn in
their beds with sigh of relief; the
servants go about repairing damages
with many unspoken oaths Tom is no
favorite with them /; they see no use for
him but to "eat like a glutton and to
order about his betters.'
The trouble is that nobody can find
use for Tom he is crude, noisy, NAL
apropos in the house, or the woods, or
the street the one limb of the social
body awkward and ilI-set the uncouth
mOlecule for which even Tyndan could
find no work in nature. Out of doors
| Tom is as sure harbinger of a row or
a fight as cough is of consumption a;
In doors he stamps out carpets, breaks
china, leaves the print of his paws on
the walls. The land before him may
be an Eden of bric-a- -brac, but behind
him will be a bowling wilderness. In
literature, nobody found a place for
him but great-hearted gentle Thack-
cray, who loved and made much of the
lad. His sister, a sweet, Christian girl,
who teaches the little wretches in a
mission school with enthusiasm. They
are picturesque through dirt and mis-
cry but what can you make of a crea-
ture who mimics your singing of Ah
non gi1t'lge (and back with "Give us
the Mulligan Guards, Nancyl" " Percy,
brilliant young lawyer, marked in
society for his fine aesthetic taste, does
not endure Tom he holds him an un-
mannerly cub, with neither heart nor
brains. His father, out of regard for
his corns, holds him at arms length, and
mentions him only to grumble at his
shoe and tailor bills. Percy had been
! head of his class in schooI-a career and
distinction waited for him; but what
can be done with this dull, lazy fellow :?
Even his mother, since he put on trows-
ers for knickerbockers, has uneon-
sciously drawn away from the boy she
is loving, gentle mother too when
he was baby lying on her breast he
was a part of herself, a good deal
dearer than herself. But this half
man, half-child, with all his strange de-
velopments of cruelty and roughness,
thoughts and ways which are alien to
her Own, appalls and perplexes her.
| If she is q coarse woman she nags and
scolds him necessarily; if she be of
gentle breeding she quietly leaves him
to himself. At school Tom herds with
the undistinguished rabble. There are
certain pale, broad-browed youths
who carry off the prizes at every exhi-
bition day, and certain other broad
shouldered, ruddy fellows who are
masters on the background, but there
are 100 or 200 Toms remarkable in
neither brain nor body they, are neither
head nor foot of the roll; the masters
hear their halting lessons drowsiIy !;
they are worn out with a surfeit of
commonplace hoy.
Meanwhile, nobody remembers that
( Tom is Tom to himself-the only hero
| he knows in the world-the one being
whose pleasure and hurts and chances
for to morrow he considers night after
night and day after day. You think
that his mind is full of the chunk of
cake he is munching, or the licking he
means to give Joe Peters. But the boy
knows quite we'll where he stands in
life; ne sees all the impatient looks,
feels the act in every angry word. He
| sees with keen sight how he is some
how outside of the world OF other peo-
pie grown men and women have their
place and work outlined and clear his
future and capability are all vsgue-a
mere nothing which nobody concerns
| himself much about. There is a certain
immortal charm about the baby Tot.
She brought the glory with her when
she " came from God, who is her home.
| Tom himself has a reverence and a pas
siOnate love for the little thing; it
brings tears to his eyes when she hugs
or kisses him, or when he sees her
watching at the window for him. But
| the charm and glamour were worn off
him long ago even his mother does not
| see It now. He does not know what can
be the matter with him; he does not
/ know why, when he would be graceful
and manly like Percy, he is only prig
gish and ridiculous he does not under
stand why the problems which come by
nature to the other fellows make his
heavy brain ache. The duIlest, rough
est Tom does not want to be dull or
rough. He is in the cropping, transition
state when he cannot appear the child
he was or the man he viii be; he per
petually essays to be something, to
stand firmly somewhere in the world
is by turns humble and conceited. God
knows how bitter the consciousness of
his inferiority is to the lad, how often
he would like to go back to lay his head
on his mothers breast, or saw his saby
praying at her knee, if he could know
Z ~ Ill L.