Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1882-09-22
IMITATION.

When was the dirtiest little tow
head Il am sure that is no disgrace
that tramped to the village school, .
travelling phrenologist declared thatm,
bump ofimitation covered two-thirds o
my Uranium, and as the days wanee
the afore said bump fully developed
itself. My father used to tell me tha
Lives ofgreat men remind us
We can make our lives sablime,''
and l at once proceeded to initiate
great men, that my existance might
be as sublime as anybody's.
began on Washington, upon whose
acts enlarged somewhat. l took my
little hatchet, crept to the young orchard
of cherry and peach, and leveled it te
the ground. My bump of imitation
was at work. My sire discovered the
deed, and when he asked me regarding
the authorship, l forgot po:tion of the
Washington story, and swore l didn't
know ANYTHING abou: 1t. But my little
hatchet" condemed me- Particles o.
the soft young bark adhered to it, and
you wouldn't take the application ol
peach and cherry that got for all the
lives of G. w. published since the death
of old Weems.
Then resolved to initiate Alexander
We had fine colt. as fiery as Vesuvi.
us, and as untamed as Mazzeppa's Tar
tar. He should be Bucephalus. his
Alexander. While the old folks were
absent. bridled the colt with difficulty
and led him from the stable, and drove
my spurs into his flanks. He snorted
his posterior sxtremities shot upward at
the sun, and described a faultIess par
abola over his head. Bucephalus had
conquered his Alexander. Ancient
history had been reversed. An hour
afterward they picked me up with a
broken arm, dislocated collar-bone,
almost scalped, and nose knocked
forty miles for Sunday. The physicians
hoped. for my own good, that the bump
of imitation had been spoiled, but
subsequent actions declared its facul-
ties unimpaired.
When quite young, father had i'm.
pressed upon my childish mind the life
of Benjamin Franklin, how worthy of
imitation it was, and when l recovered
from the Bucephalian exploit, resolv-
ed to please the old man by initiating
Ben. l made a kite, painted B. F.'s
nice sayings all over it, stole the door
key and went out into the fields to jerk
the lightning from the clouds. l Sue
ceeded; a little flash of fire ran down
the string and knocked me senseless.
For hours they thought me dead; but
l recovered with hairless cranlum. l
wasn't done with Franklin yet. You
know he walked through Philadelphia
once with six loaves of bread under
his arm, three loaves in his mouth, and
a handful ofg:nger cakes. l resolved
to thus initiate the postmaster sage:
got my sister to stand in the door and
play the young lady who laughed al
Ben. But where was l to get the
bread? Our cupboard happened to
be as bare as Mother Hubbard's fam.
Gus larder. A lucky thought struck
me. l resorted to the bakery, sent the
baker into the oven to see if the mince
pies were done, gobbled my palapher'
malta and started. l tell you l cut
figure going down town with six loave:
of bread under my arms, and slstel
shamed me just like the girl shamee
Franklin. Suddenly somebody criee
'Stop Thief" and l saw the bake
coming at me. l ran under the bee
and let the curtain down, but it was nj
use. The brute broke up the didacti'
entertainment, and it cost our folk
about fifty dollars to keep me from 60
ing with the sheriff. 1t taught then
a lesson, however, to furnish their off
spring with bread. That moral savet
me a birching. The bump of limitation
was still "up to snuff"
Then fell back ON Columbus 10
want of modern examples. Tread HOY
he made the egg stand on end. 1twa
near easter, and the boys had laid IL
the usualsupply ofthe ovate "bivalves.
bet that could make an egg stan'
on its beam ends. They staked doz
en- bivalves on the proposition. l sim
ply played Columbus, and the llttl
rascals swore it wasn't fair. reache'
for the stakes, and got them. too-a
over me. l was awalking specimen {
unadulterated eeg-nog. Then the
licked me, and that dilapldated ear ha
been whole we're it not for Columbus
foolishness. The imitation bump wi
never leave me. =