The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-18
THAT BOY.
A Few of the Ways in Which He Breaks
the Commandments Laid Upon Him.
] Rurdetta

the Commandments Laid Upon Him.
R. ]. Burdette.
When you see boy coming down the
street with a ball of cord in his hand and
look on his serious face like that worn by
the picture of an early Christian father stand
ing in the arena waiting for the new lion to
be called TO dinner, it is o sign that if you
just cast your eyes upward, you can see that
boy'skite dancing nimbly in the air to the las
civious pleasing of whole colony of tele-
phone wires.
When you see a boy going along in the
merry, merry sunshine with his hat in his
hand, shaking his hair with 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 a warm stone to his ear for the same
purpose, it is true sign that you may think
OF that boy. by and by, standing SPECIFICS
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 a
boy with skate strap. And in hoe signoes
you will know that boy has been in SWIM
ming when he should have been at school
learning that "twenty-six propositions are
followed by the accusative," all the way from
ad to ULTRA
When you see a boy, about 5:45 p. NJ, with
ink on his nose and the CRIME of chalk on
his hands, lis hair disheveled and the two
upper buttons of his jacket gone, his collar
rumpled and his necktie twisted awry, and
suspicious looking flush and two or three
scratches adjoining his face you will know
that he was keep i'm after school, and
was tainted for the same by another boy
when he came out; and if you want to know
the rest of it. it will not be necessary to go
into particulars but just ask him, (which
whippedT' If a joyous look of triumph
dances in the exultant eyes, you will know
that just around the corner you can find a
boy with a bleeding nose and generally de-
moralized facade. But if the lad you ques-
ton looks down-cast, multis cum lachrymis
begins his Grafton, like Divatiaeus, by say
ing, We'll, he was a great deal bigger'n
me-" you may know that your boy got
clicked"
When you see a boy, with the pockets of
his pantaloons bullying out until he looks
like great humble bee, laden for the hive,
while he walks along trying to look as thin
as split lath, and wearing a profound ex-
preston of supernatural innocence, you
know, without referring to this code of
signals, that boy has been lingering in some
body's orchard, and doesn't care to have I'M
due publicity given to facts that only con-
Germ him personally.
When you see boy on the distant hillside,
holding one bare foot tenderly but firmly in
the welded fingers of both hands. while he
hops around IN regular but excited orbits,
at the same time vocing his grief with wall
ing shrieks, mellowed by the sunny distance,
then, without going to the telephone, you
may know that barefoot boy has trod upon
the busy bee that nestled in the peIfumed
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; awfully bad, or with many tear
full failures and disgraceful stumbles
trying to be good; forgetting your command
ments which thunder upon him by the hun
dred, we'll nigh as readily and repeatedly as
you forget the ten that infinite wisdom has
laid upon you; in all his noise, his poor little
struggles, temptations, triumphs and fail
ures, his piteous little troubles and his tear
full, honest penitence, in all the lightness of
a boys life, your heart must grow mellow
and tender for the little germ of manhood.
so rich with seeds of strength that will ri pen
by and by, for good or for evil. as you walk
and live before the boy; ever as you look at
him, remember what you were thirty or
forty years ago. and say, God bless the boy"