Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-11-03
One Of the "FizxIe" Family.

There was once very smart boy, whom,
TO begin with, we will call little Fizzle.
He was one Of those wide-awake boys who
poke their noses into almost everything
they see, and think they know half as
much again as all the rest of the world.
lie went 10 school very young, and his
mother wanted TO have him learn to read
and write well before he did anything else !;
but be preferred TO study 'geog'fry,"
grammar and 'rith hnetic 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. II he was likely
10 say Michigan was "bounded" by Con-
necticut, why, other boys of his age, it may
be, never heard of either place. For, young
as be was, you see little Fizzle had come TO
point where he must choose between two
ways. He could half learn little about a
great many things, or he could we'll learn
all about few things. He made up his
mind he would do the first; and that's the
way he went on and grew into big Flzzle.
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 a cart, and began fine table, and
finished a remarkably pretty rocking
chair, which tipped over instead OF rock
ing. But then it was $50 stupid" to spend
time and trouble in making only one
thing, and making II perfect.
AS he grew older people liked him, be-
cause he could talk about all things under
the sun, and was really very entertaining
If they did not want to gel any genuine in-
for nation. He was not worth last years
almanac to anybody who was amer facts.
He thought, when he grew up, he would
be lawyer, but he began by studying
med icine. By-and-by he knew more about
physic than a lawyer needed TO know, and
not half enough about medicine for doc
tor; then be had a smattering of other
things. He painted big animals whose
skins were colored very handsomely, but
whose legs were not shaped like any living
beasts. After awhile he began TO wonder
what allied him that he failed in everything
he tried. He grew poorer and poorer,
while men who had been boys with him,
boys who had worked like drudges over a
few things, these, grown up, became great
men, rich men, famous doctors, lawyers
and ministers, while he was little Fizzle
grown into big Fizzle. Then folks began
TO sneer and 10 snnb him. Each year he
grew poorer and more discouraged. AT
twenty he had thought himself great ge-
Mus; at forty he used 10 hang around a
black smiths shop, and wished, he had
learned 10 shoe horses. At sixty he had
given up all hopes of being lawyer, a doc
tor or an artist, or blacksmith, and he
kept his soul and body together by clean
ing old feather beds.
Now, If anybody wants to know how to
become such another big Fizzle, let him
begin at once TO be little one, to hall
learn everything he begins, to begin some
thing new as soon as it gets bard TO under
stand the last thing he undertook. Follow
up such course faithfully and he will moi
fail of neglect, self-disgust and a poverty
wherein be may not even he able TO find
old feathers to cleau.-CHurch Journal.