The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1883-10-03
The Boy as He Is.

When YOU see a boy coming down
the street with ball of cord IN his
hand and a look on his serious lace
like that worn by the picture OF an
early Christian father standing In the
arena waiting for the new hon to De
called to dinner, it is a sign that II
YOU cast your eyes upward, you can
see that BOYS kite dancing nimbly
in the air to the lascivious pleasing
of a whole colon of telephone wires.
When you see a boy going along
in the merry, merry sunshine, with
his hat in his hand, shaking his hair
with a pine stick TO get it dry, now
and then leaning his head on one
side, pounding the other side with
his hand and practically kicking his
feet in the air, in desperate efforts to
get the water out of his ears, or when
YOU see him holding warm stone
to his ear for the same purpose, 1t is
a true sign that you may think OF
that boy, by and by, standing
speechless when his mother asks
him how his shirt came to be wrong
side out. You must not run down
the street in the direction of his
home under the impression that the
boy is being basely murdered. You
can't kill boy with a skate strap.
And in hoe slgnoes you will know
that boy has been in swimming
when he should have been at school,
learning that "twenty-six PROPOSE
tons are followed by the accusative, "
all the way from ad to ultra.
When you see boy about 5:45 p.
m, with ink on his nose and the
CRIME of chalk on his hands. his hair
disheveled and the two upper but
tons OF his jacket gone, his collar
rumpled and his necktie twisted
away, anda suspicious looking flush
and two or three scratches adjoining
MS face, you will know that he was
KEEP in after school, and was
taunted for the same by another
boy when he came ont, and if you
want to know the rest of it, it will
not be necessary to 60 into particu-
lars, but just ask him which
whipped If joyous look of tri-
umph dances in the exultant eyes,
you will know that just around the
corner you will find a boy with a
bleeding nose and a generally de-
moralized facade. But if the lad
you question looks downcast, muLis
cum lachrymis begins his Grafton,
like Divitiacus, by saving: Well,
he was a great deal bigger'n me,
you know that your boy got
licked
When you see a boy, with the
pockets of his pantaloons bulging
out until he looks like great bum
bic bee, laden for lhe hive, while he
walks along trying to look as thin as
split lath, and wearing a profound
expression of supernatural limo,
cence, YOU know, without referring
to this code of signals, that boy has
been lingering in somebody's orch.
ard, and doesn't care to have
undue publicity given to the
facts which only concern him per.
sonally.
When you see a boy on the dis.
tant hillside suddenly leap up into
the soft summer air, holding one
bare foot tenderly but firmly in the
welded fingers of both hands, while
he hops around in irregular but
excited orbits, at the same time
voicing his grief with wailing shrieks
mellowed by the sunny distance
then, without going to the telephone
you may know that barefooted boy
has trod on the busy bee that nestled
in the perfumed clover.
And wherever and whenever you
see him, in mischief or out of it
that is, Just coming out of it or Just
ready to get into some more; awful
ly bad, or with many fearful failures
and disgraceful stumbles trying tC
be good forgetting your command,
ments which thunder upon him by
the hundred, well nigh as readily
and repeatedly as you forgot the ter
that infinite wisdom has laid upon
you, in all his noise, bis poor little
struggles, temptations, triumphs and
failures, his piteous little trouble:
and his fearful, honest penitence, in
all the lightness Of a boys life, youl
heart must grow mellow and tender
for the little germ of manhood, 81
full of wonderful possibilities, 81
rich with seeds of strength that viii
ripen by and by, for good or for evil
as you walk and live before the boy
ever as you look at him, remembe
what you were thirty or forty year,
ago, and say, "God bless the boy.
Bob Bardette.