Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-05-31
A New England Story.
winch May Not and Yet Might he T

Which May NOT ana Yet M1Snt tS0 Irue.
johnny Bouquet in New York Tribune.
A father in New England town had a
son little, large headed boy of nervous
intensity, with eyes of startling wonder
and long curling eyelashes which started
like his fawn-like eyes with quick appre-
hension and timidity a boy who played
with all intensity, kept doing something
all day long without the power to rest,
walked off alone, and even when alone
spoke with himself, chased the geese with
little legs as lean and swift, and at the
table eating his meals could not sit very
still nor bear to sit all tho morning in
church hearing tho sermon because his
heart was tooO rapid in his narrow little
chest, where every rib could be counted
against his tender flesh and skin. In the
morning no was awake at earliest light !;
at evening his tired nature yielded to the
deep sleep of exhaustion. His mother
feared she could never raise him to he a
man. His father thought he was too long
becoming man in gravity, sobriety and
formal obedience.
"What ails my son ?" the father stern
ly asked. He is rattle-headed and with
out stability. l. fear for him. Do you
chastise him enough? Spare not the rod
lest he grow beyond you and your rulc ~
"Alas! p exclaimed the mother, he
has his little world We cannot see, per-
haps. He is growing and sensitive. The
doctor says We must not push him at his
studies, but let him play all he can, till
his franc is equal to his BRAIN"
The father shook his head and spoke
sternly to the boy, and feared he was 90
ing to give them all trouble growing up SO
seldom moulded and unrestrained.
All day the little boy was doing some
thing, carrying the cat by the tail, carry
ing the dog under his arm, making pic
lures on paper, Of engines, and steamboats,
and Indians, and bellows.
He will be an artists said his mother
hopefully.
"He will spoil the library" exclaimed
tho father suspiciOusly.
Antagonism grew up between the father
and the boy, born, on the boys part, of
fear on the fathers, of :criticism and Sc
verify. The boy ran to his mother and
asked her protection from his fathers sus-
pecting eye. Tho fathered feared his wife
was spelling the son with mistaken gener-
osity and allowance. At times the father
habitual suspicion broke away like the
clouds above hard, humid Britain, and he
laid his rigorous books Of theology down
to take his boy walking, and they grew a
little nearer. Then again the father Oh
served some vOluptuous tendency in the
son which started his fears anew some
taste for worldly, passing modes and joys.
"Wife," said he, edo you erer give
our boy money p
IA little'' she said a few pennies,
to buy drawing materials and colOrs hc
will be an artist, think"
Money" exc laimed the sire, "Is the
Of every evil. You had better give him
fire or poison. He will become a wild,
ruined spendthrift.
Tho idea that his wifc gave the child
money operated in the fathers head like
jealousy or revenge it tinted every
thing about his SONS conduct, and he be-
lieved his wife had deliberately set to
indulge her child at tho expense Of his
soul.
One morning, thinking of such things.
the father lay awake in bed and a gentle
noise disturbed him. The sun was nearly
up. though it was scarcely S o'clock, and
the light air striking through the cham
Der curtains, showed q little boy in hi.
night'gown stealing along the floor to
ward the foot Of his fathers bed. Lying
pertocCly SClu, Win eyes almost CLOSED
the father saw that small, large-headed
child, unable perhaps to sleep yet careful
not to awake his parents, turn an eye o
timid covctousness upon his fathers
trousers and vest hanging upon q nail
He glanced sharply toward his father te
see if he was quite asleep, and then
swiftly, like little bird, hoped upon a
chair and ran his lean white fingers into
mis- fathers vest pocke..
"Ha! thought the father. "My son
in my pockets by stealth, before I am
awake, and initiating tho bad example Of