Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1883-07-31
One Kind of Boy.
fBilI Nye.

fBill Nye.l
am always sorry to see youth GET ir.
rltated and pack up his clothes in the heat
OF DEBATE and leave the home-nest. His fi1-
ture is a little doubtful, and IL is hard to
prognostlcate whether he will fracture
limestone for the streets of a bio citv or he.
come PRESIDENT of the United States but
there is a beautiful and luminous life ahead
OF him in comparison with that of the how
who obstlnately refuses to leave the home
nest.
Inc boy who cannot summon the moral
courage some day to uncoil the tendrils of
ms heart from the clustering idols of the
household, to grapple with outrageous for
tune, ought to be taken by the ear and led
away out into the great untried realms of
space.
While the great world throbs on, he siehs
and refuses to throb. While other vounp
men put on their seal brown over-alls and
wrench the laurel wreath and other yeeete-
bles from cruel fate, the youth who dangles
near the old nest, and eats the hard-earned
groceries of his father, shivers on the brink
OF life's great current and sheds the scald-
ing tear. ->
lie is the young man-afraid-of- -the-saw
DUCK, the human being with the unlaundri-
ed spinal column. The only vital question
that may be said to oagitate his pseudo brain
Is whether he shall marry and bring his wife
10 the home-nest, or marry and tear loose
from his parents to live with his father-in-
law. Finally he settles it and compromises
by living alternately with each.
How the old folks yearn to see him. How
their aged eyes light up when he comes
with his growing family to devour eyery-
thlng IN sight, and yawn through the space
between meals. This is the heyday of his
lie the high noon of the boy who never
ventured to ride the yearling colt. or to be
yanked through the shimmering SUNLIGHT
at the tail of two-year-old.
He never dared to have any fun because
he might bump his nose and make it bleed
on his clean clothes. He never surrenti-
tiously cut the copper wire off the light
ming rod to snare suckers with. and he
never went in swimming because the great.
rude boys might duck him or paint him
with mud. He Stunned the green apple of
boyhood, and did not slide down the hill
because he would have to pull his sled back
on the top again.
NOW he borrows other peoples nevspa.
pers, eats the provisions of others, and Sits
on the counter of the grocery till the pro-
prletor calls him counter irritant.
There can be nothing more un-American
than this fiabby polyp, this one-horse tad
pole that never becomes frog. The aver
age American would rather burst up in
business SIX times in four years, and settle
1or nine cents on the dollar, than TO lead
such life. He would rather be an active
bankrupt than weak and bilious barnacle
on the calm shell of home.
The true American would rather work
himself into luxury or the lunatic asylum
than to hang like great wart on the face
OF nature This young man is not in ac-
cordance with the Yankee schedule, and
yet do not want to say that he belongs to
any other nation. Foreign powers NAV
have been wrong; transatlantic nations
may have erred, and the system of Europe
an government may have been erroneous.
but would not come out and charge them
with this horrible responsibility. They
never harmed me, and I will not tarnish
their fair fame with this grave Indictment
He will breath certain amount of at
mosphere and absorb a given amount of
food for few years, and then the full
grown biped will leave the home nest at
last. The undertaken will come and get
him and take what there is left of him out
to the cemetery. That will be all. There
can be no deep-abiding sorrow for him here;
public buildings will not be draped in
mourning, and you can get your mail at the
usual hours when he dies. The band will
not play sadder strain because the fag
end OF human failure has tapered down to
death, and the soft and shapeless features
are still. You will have no trouble getting
draft cashed on that day, and the giddy
throng will join the picnic as they had
made arrangements to do.