The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1879-01-25
NO. If.
BURDETTE'S BOY.


Abstract Of the Lecture on "The Rise and Fall Of d
. MouStaehc.
a A boy asks questions. If there was any
truth in the theory of transmigration when
a boy died he would 90 into an interroga-
tion point. A boy knows where the
first snowdrop lifts and where the last
Indian paint fingers. His pockets are cab
inets. He drags from them curious fossils
that he don't know the names Of. He knows
where the herbs grow that have marvellous
medicinal propeaties, and he nearly sends
the rest of the family to the graveyard by
making practical tests upon them. The
boy has his superstitions and he carries in
his pocket one particular marble-be ii
brummie, agate or blood alley (which wher
he loses he sees panic and bankruptcy com
ing and retires before the crash comes with
pockets full of shillings and creditors
meeting in the back room. He has a charm
to cure warts on the hand he has mar
vellous instinct for the woods. As he grows
older he wants to be a missionary or a pi-
rate, and so far as there is any preference
he would rather be a pirate--a profession
In which there are more opportunities for
making money and fewer chances Of being
devoured raw. He hates company for it
carries him to the second table aud leaves
but adopts the single rail narrow guag4
passenger trainway and soon cures tie
other members of the family Of the prac-
tice of setting the water pitcher On the bal
luster post He asks with alarming fire.
Quency for new hat, aud wears ii in the
air or on the ground ten times more than
on his head Poor Tom loves as he makes
mischief. He muses. his sisters ruff and
gets severely reprimandel. But some
neignbors Tom comes in aul makes the
most helpless. hopeless, abiect chaotic
wreck of that ruffis that it can he distorted
into. and all the reproach he gets is. ''lIu,t
he 90 so Goon?" But poor Tom gets weary
and drops off into the wonderland of q bows
dreams, and no mother who hos not lrle-
ged sleepy boy off the lounge at nine
o'clock and led him upstairs can uu Ial5alI
the Herculean grasp with which q square
sleep takes hold of a boy. now fear
fully Timber and limp it makes him aud
how it develops iuuumemble Joints
that work both ways He never re-
lates his dreams till every one else in the
family has told theirs. and there and then
he comes in like a back county with the Ne
cessarv majority In time Tom comes to
desire tail coat and glove,ftting boots.
Before he has worn his fathers arctics on
his feet. and his mothers slippers-ou his
Jacket 1t dawns upon Tom that he has
hands-a pair. good hand. And when he
goes to the first church socable with his
sister on account of the absence Of some
other Tom. he finds that he has eleven
hands. and he wonders where the eleventh
one came from. Now his mother never cuts
his hair with a pair of scissors, that have
cut miles and miles of calico. and vast eter-
mites of paper. and snarls aud tangles of
string. and have snutfed candles. and pared
apples. and trimmed lamp wicks. and pried
up carpet tacks. and trimmed the family
nails. and have done their level best at the
annual struggle of cutting stoveepipe
lengths in two Now he knows that mans
upper lip was destined by nature to be a
pasture. How exqulsitely re-
served he is: with what delicate action
does he make the first preliminary investi-
cation in order that he may detect the first
svmntoms of velvet resistance. And
when he has found that 1t is there and
1nly needs to be brought out. how he walks
iown to the BARRIERS shop, gazing anxious
V into the window and-walks past. At
asst, when he musters up courage enough
o @ inside and climbs into the chair and
5 Just on the point of Whispering to the
barber that he would like shave, In comes
ONE modern Esau, with beard as long rs
TOMS arm. and frightens 1t out of him
nd has his hair cut again, for the third
ime this week, 50 short that the barber
olds in his teeth. cuts it with a file,
rims it with a smoothing plane and parts
with straight edge and scratch
WI Nobody ever did know how bov
cts hold of his fathers razor. and when
ne bov gets it he hardly knows what to do
ith it. In the course Of few minutag
le blade buckles on him and cuts every
ne of his four fingers. Then he cuts the
rop with it. and would cut it oftener If
lie strop lasted longer. Then he knocks