Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1876-11-08
How to Make a Fizzle.
Church journal.

There was once very smart boy
whom to begin with, we will call Lit
tie Fizzle. He was one OF those wide
awake boys who poke their noses in,
to almost everything they see, and
think they know half as much again
as all the rest Of the world. He went
to school very yonng, and his mother
wanted him to learn to read and
write well before he did anything
else; but he preferred to study
"geog'fry," grammar, and. .'rithmetit
besides. As he was SO very bright
he soon learned to write very badly
spelled words, and could tell you In
quite incorrect language what a verb
or an adverb was. If he was likely
to say that Michigan was bounded
by Connecticut, why, other boys Of
his age, 1t may be, never heard of eli
ther place. For young as he was,
you see little Fizzle had come to q
point whore he must choose between
two ways. He could half learn a lit
tie about great many things, or he
could well learn all about few
things. He made up his mind that
he would do the first, and that's the
way he went on, and grew into big
Fizzle.
When he wanted to read he never
took one nice story and read it every
word, but he SKINNED over the easy
parts of dozen and jumbled them
altogether in his mind. AS soon as
he owned tool-box, he almost made
q cart, and began fine table, and fin
ished remarkably pretty rocking
chair, which tipped over instead of
rocking. But then it was $50 stupid
to spend time and trouble in making
only one thing and making it perfect.
As he grew older people liked him,
because he could talk about all things
under the sun, and was really very
entertaining if they did not really
want to get any genuine information.
He was not worth last years alma
nae to anybody who was after facts.
He thought, when he grew up, he
would be lawyer, but he began by
studying medicine. By-and-by he
knew more about physic than a law
yer needed to know, and not half
enough about medicine for doctor.
Then he had smattering of other
things. He painted big animals
whose skins were colOrcd very hand
somely, but whose legs were not shap-
cd like any living beasts. After
awhile he began to wonder what all
ed him, that he failed in everything
he tried. He grew poorer and poor
cr, while men who had been boys
with him, boys who had worked like
drudgcs over a few things, these
grown up became great men, rich
men, famous doctors, lawyers. and
ministers, while he was little Fizzlc,
grown into big Fizzle. Then folks
began to sneer and to snub him.
Each year he grew poorer and more
discouraged. At twenty he had
thought himself great genius; at
forty he used to hang around a black
smiths shop, and wished he had
learned to shoe horses. At sixty he
had given up all hope Of being law
yer, a doctor, or an artist, OF black
smith, and he kept his soul and body
together by cleaning old feather
beds.
Now. if any body wants to know
how to become such another big Fiz-
zle, let him begin at once to be a lit
tie one, to half learn everything he
begins, to begin something new as
soon as it gets hard to understand
the last thing he undertook. Follow
up such course faithfully, and he
will not fail of neglect self-disgust,
and q poverty wherein he may not
even be able to find old feathers to
clean.