The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-03-30
The First Pair OF Pants.

Have you seen the boy with his first
pair of pantsP
Then you have seen King! an EN-
peror! royal autocrat, who has
reached the pinnacle of earthly felicity
and beatitude, and who has, it would
seem, nothing more to ask for.
He has been looking forward to this
era in his existence for long time.
Mamma has promised him, if he will
only be good boy, and not stick pins
in the sofas, and twist the cats tail, he
shall be put into pants, just like papa's,
in the spring.
How much anxious thought the little
fellow has had upon the subject! How
he has wakened an hour earlier morn
ings, and figured up the number of
pockets the wonderful garments would
contain, and arranged in his mind how
he would make Tommy Jones stand
round for Tommy's ma will not put
him in pants for whole year!
When the eventful time arrives in
which the pants are finished, the earth
is hardly large enough to contain our
embryo young man.
How his eyes shine, and how his
cheeks glow and he struts like a pea
cock with all sail set, and thrusts his
arms to the elbows into the capacious
pockets, which will, in short time, be
filled with a miscellaneous collection of
Irvine, fish-hooks, old buttons, nails,
iack-knives, whistles, angle-worms,
spruce gum, bullets, hard-shelled bugs,
fragments of stolen cookies, and other
articles usually found in boys pockets.
All the aunts in the house must adj
mire him in his new toggery. All of
them must kiss him, and shake him,
and tell him he looks like a man.
He will tuck the legs of his new pants
into his stockings by the time he has
had them on an hour, to make believe
the stockings are boots and the streets
are muddy. He will sit cross-legged,
like papa, and tip over backward in the
vain attempt to put his heels on the
table, like Uncle Jack does when he is
reading and smoking.
If you want to make him your mortal
enemy for life, insinuate that he is too
small for pants, and call him the baby!
How his blood will boil! and how all
the revengeful elements in his boyish
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will tell Tommy Jones that you are a
nasty old thing! and he wishes you'd
fall in well as Tower did!
Among his young companions the
boy with his first pair of pants is gen
eral-in-chief. He issues orders which
are obeyed. The mud-pe-making bust
ness goes agreeably to his commands.
He "bossesh the playing horse and
tag proceedings, and puts down the
other boys numerically, with the cry:
''Don't mind them! They're only girls
in petticoats and gownsr'
To all the callers at his house, he
says, at once:
See my new pants!' and then he
shows the pockets and stretches out his
dumpy little legs, and feels proud and
happy in manner that will never come
to him again.
He wants to climb trees, and ride
horses, and stand on his head, like the
other boys, and if the new pants con-
tinue intact for week, under the
strain inflicted upon them, then the
cloth was genuine, and the tailor was
loyal to his profession.
Never laugh at or ridicule the boy
with his first pair of pants!
If there is any such thing in this
world as unalloyed enjoyment, do not
NEEDLE with it. Let no scornful smile
come over your face when you see the
exultation of the boy in his first pair of
pants! The man who would willingly
mar such state of felicity would steal
the cents off the eyes of dead mother
in-law.-Kdte Thorn, IN N. Y. Weekly.