Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-09-29
THE GUITAR PERIOD.
A Critical Tune IN the Life of a 6oy-Reme0fes
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'HE W.T. NJ FGHfOOs
A Critical Tune m the Life of a 6oy-Reme0tes
Recommended and their Application.
There is time in the life of ev-
cry boy when he is taken with the
fever to learn to play on the guitar.
The fever comes on, says Peck'S
Sun, about the time when he first
falls in love, and that is at the age
of fourteen or fifteen. He may
think he is in love at twelve years
of age, but that is only symptom.
AT fourteen he is in love to such an
extent that it actually makes him
tired to carry it around. He has
been reading novels in which there
is always a Spaniard or an Italian
lover, dressed in fantastic costume,
who takes a guitar and goes to sere-
made the girl In the novel, and she
comes to the window and throws a
kiss at the lover, and then comes
down herself, and they lallygag on
the grass and talk foreign love and
catch cold, and the boy thinks il is
about the finest scheme that he ever
read of, and he decides to obtain
guitar. 1t is some days before he
can muster up courage enough to
speak to his mother about buying a
guitar, and he wouldn't dare speak
to his father about it. His mother
has noticed that he has not seemed
well lately, and as she has watched
him moping around and signing
she has felt that he is having his
young life sapped away by study,
or that worms are feeding on his
damask stomach. The old man
who has been there, knows that the
kid is in love, and his recipe would
be wedding onions, or carrying in
coal, but
THE GOOD MOTHERS TENDER HEART
Is TOUCHED
and she consents to the guitar
scheme, and shortly afterward there
is weird, ghostly sound coming
from the attic that is a cross be-
tween the eolian music of breeze
signing through a wire window
screen, and couple of cats tuning
up for Il gooseberry-bush symphony
in T. fiat, with bOotjack bouquets.
The boy thumbs the strings OF the
guitar in silence when the father is
not around, and-dreams of the time
when he can play an accompani-
ment toa love song, and put on a
velvet jacket, trimmed with gold
lace, Il wide .sOmbrero, and go to
the house of his girl and MARBLE
through the black moustache which
he is sure will soon put in an APP
pearance on his lip. o, how he suf-
fers, as he thumbs the strings and
fails to detect the first principles OF
a tune, but how patiently he works.
He keeps it up until he wears the
skin off his fingers, about which
time he is surprised by his father,
who follows up the strange, weird
neck and in two minutes shakes
the love all out of him and sets him
to work at moving away hay in
the barn. There Is no one thing
that will take the incipient fourteen
year-old love out of a boy like now
ing hay in a barn. He does not
have time to dream of the Spaniard
with the guitar, and the beautiful
girl at the easement dressed in flow
ing robes, and her hair gathered in
blue ribbon.
He HAS TO PITCH HAY OR BE COVER
ED UP,
and so he pitches hay. The guitar
period is one of the most critical
periods in the life of boy. If he
succeeds in learning to play tune,
and his voice becomes trained to
such an extent that he can sing
without being frightened at the
noise, then he is gone. From that
out he becomes dude, whose sole
ambition is to be called upon to sing
and he will try to look sweet, and
will sing love songs TT private par
ties, with his hand in his bosom,
and think the ladies all yearn for
him, when they feel as though they
would like to take him across their
knees and careSS him with press
board. He will be no good on
earth, and will haunt music stores,
and have no ambition but to go to
some place where there is to be mu-
sic, and where he will be called
upon to "favor the company. He
becomes the laughing stock of his
friends, his parents are ashamed OF
him, and his voice becomes his sole
care, and he never amounts to
row of pins. When a boy arrives
at the guitar period, and begins to
go around rs though he was too
weak to walk and too lazy to eat,
and crawls off TO read novels, and
signs when his mother looks low
ingly ut him, then is the time to
wake him up, and the father is the
only one to do it. 1t has got to be
done right away, or it will be ever
lastingIy too late, for every day that
the fever is allowed to remain in
his system makes it harder to break
q fafh fally n how
out of the guitar disease, and show
him that he is liable to graduate as
a dude, and some try the method OF
shaking. One man was very sue
cessful with his boy, by following
him to the attic and catching him
in the act of fumbling the guitar,
and taking him by the collar with
one hand, and the guitar by the
neck with the other, and wearing
out the guitar over the lower level
of the boys spine, and sending the
the boy out into the pasture to wean
a calf and teach it to drink out OF a
pail but that always seemed lit
tie harsh, Us we had to pay for the
guitar in lnstallmentS afterwards,
and the mother of the calf drove us
over a fence real spry. However, a
boy wants to be attended TO at the
guitar period and shown the folly !
of il, ur he will hate himself forever |
after. When parents find it COM |
ing on they should consult each |
other, and take prompt action, or
the boy that is their pride will go |
through life singing through his
nose: "Cdly Paddy Blossom"
or, 80, Cub, o, Cub with Be, the |
Bood is Beebing."