Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1883-07-26
ONE KIND OF A BOY.
The True stuff From which Genuine
Americans Are Made.
Fiji Nye in the Detroit Free Pres.


Fill Nye in the Detroit Free Press.
am always sorry to see a youth
get irritated and pack up his clothes,
in the heat of debate and leave the
home nest. His future is a little
doubtful. and it is hard to prognosti-
cate whether he viii fracture lime
stone for the streets of great city or
become President of the United States
but there is a beautiful and luminous
life ahead of him in comparison with
that of the boy who obstinately refus-
es to leave the home-nest.
The boy who cannot summon the
moral courage some day to uncoil the
tendrils of his heart from the cluster
inc idols of the houshold To grapple
with outrageous fortune, ought to be
taken by the ear and led out into the
great untried realm of space.
While the great world throbs ON, he
signs and refuses to throb. While
other young men put on seal-brown
overalls and wrench the laurel-wreath
and other vegetables from cruel fate,
the youth who bangles near the old
nest and eats the hard-earned grocer
les of his father shivers ON the brink
of lifes great current and sheds the
scalding tear.
He is the young-man-afraid -of-the-
sawbuck, the human being with the
unlaundried plnal column. The only
vital question that may be said to agl-
tate his pseudo brain is whether he
shall marry and bring his wife to the
home-nest or marry and tear loose
from his parents to live with his faith
er-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 a growing fam
lily to devour everything i'll sight and
yawn through the space between
meals This is the hey-day of his life /;
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 a three-year-old
He never dared to have any fun be-
cause he might bump his nose and
make it bleed ON his clean clothes
He never suTTeptitiously cut the cop
per wire off the lightningrod 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 APP
pie of boyhood, and did not slide
down hill because he would have to
pull his sled back to the top again.
Now lie borroWs other peoples
papers, eats the provisions of others
and sits on the counter of the grocery
till the proprietor calls him q counter
irratant.
There can be nothing more I'M
American than this fiabby polyp, this
one-horse tad-pole that never becomes
a frog. The average American would
rather burst up in business six times
in four years and settle for nine cents
ON the dollar than to lead such life
He would rather be an active bank
rupt than a weak, and bilious barna-
Gle on Une clam shell OF home
The true American would rather
work himself into luxury or the luna
tic asylum than to hang like a great
wart ON the face of nature. This
young man is not in accordance of
Yankee schedule, and yet / do not
say that he belongs to any other ma
ton. Foreign power may have been
wrong; transatlantic nations may have
erred, and the system of European
government may have been erroneous,
but could not charge them with tins
horrible responsibility. They never
harmed me and II not tarnish their
fair names with this grave indict-
ment.
He will breathe a certain amount of
atmosphere, and absorb a given
amount of feed for a few years, and
then the full grown biped will
leave the home-neSt at last. The I'M
dertaker will come and get him and
take what there is left of him 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 hour when he
dies. The band will not play a .adder
strain because the tag end Of human
failure has tapered down to death,
and the soft and shapelesS features
are still You viii have no trouble
getting a draft cashed ON that day,
and the giddy tmong will join the
picnic as they had made arrangements