News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-09-06
TILE GUITAR PERIOD.
Az EPISODE IN THE TE%DEf! LIFE OF
LIVERY YOUNG MAN.
The First Guitar and the Sensation it Gre
utcs i'll the Household.


fifteen. He may think he is in love
at twelve years Of age, but that is only
a 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 serenade the girl
in the novel, and she comes to the win
dow and throws a kiss at the lover, and
then comes down herself and they lally-
Gag on the grass and talk foreign love
and catch cold, and the boy thinks that
is about the finest scheme that he ever
read OF, and he decides to obtain a
guitar. It is some days before he can
muster up courage enough to speak to
his mother about buying a guitar, and
he wouldn't dare to 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 hav-
ing 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 OuiOns, or
carving in coal, but the good mothers
tender heart is touched, and she con-
sents to the guitar scheme, and shortly
afterward there is weird, ghOstly sound
coming from the attic that is a cross be-
tween the polian music Of a breeze sigh
;ng through wire window screen, and
a couple Of cats tuning up for a goose
berry bush symphony in E-fiat, with
bOot-iack bouquets.
The boy thumbs the strings Of the
guitar in silence, when his father is not
around. and dreams of the time when
he can play an accompaniment to love
song, and put on a velvet jacket,
trimmed with gold lace, a wide SOM
brero, and go to the house Of his girl
and wurble through the black NOUS
tachc which he is sure will soon put i'll an
appearance on his lip. Oh, how he sUf-
fcrs, as he thumbs the strings and fails
to detect the first principles of tune,
hut how patiently he works. He keeps
it ND until he wears the skin off his fin
GERS, about which time he is surprised
bv his father, who follows mp the strange,
weird sound, and takes the boy by the
neck. and in two minutes shakes the
love all ont of him and sets him at work
moving away hay in the barn. Their,
is NO one thing that viii take rIc lncip
lent fourteen year ola love out of boy
like moving away hay in Il barn. BE
does not have time to dream of the
Spaniarl with the guitar. and the bcau-
tiful girl at the easement dressed in
flowing robes. and her hair gathered in
blue ribbon. He has to pitch hay OF
be covered up, and so he pitches nay.
The guitar period Is one Of the most
critical periods in the life of 2 boy. II
lie succeeds in learning to play tune,
and his voice becomes trained to such
an extent that he can sing without being
frightened ut the noise, then he is gone.
From that out lie becomes a dude,
whose sole ambition is to he called upon
to sing, and he viii try to look sweet,
and will sing love songs at private par
ties. with his hand in his bosom. and
think the ladies all yearn for him, when
they feel az though they would like to
take him across their knees, and caress
him with a press board. He will be 10
Good on earth, and will haunt music
stores. and have no ambition but to sc
to some place where there IS to be
music, 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 a row of pins.
When a boy arrives at the guitar period,
and begins to 90 around as though be
was too weak to walk and too lazy to eat
and crawls off to read novels, and signs
when his mother looks lovingly at him,
then is the time to wake him up, and
the father is the only one to 10 it. II
has got to be done right away, or it
will be everIastingly too late, for every
iav that the fever is allowed to remain III
his system makes it harder to break up.
Some fathers can talk a boy out Of the
e,uitar disease and show him that he is
liable to graduate as dude, and some
try the method of shaking. One man
was very successful with his boy, by