The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-09-21
The Guitar Pariod

Tbs Guitar Period.
There is time in the life of every
hoy when he is taken with the fever to
learn to play the guitar. The fever
comes on about the tine that he first
falls IN love, and that is at the age of four
teen or fifteen. He may think he is in
love at twelve wears 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 Spaniard, or an Italian lover,
dressed infantastic costume, who takes a
guitar snd goes to serenade the girl in
the novel, and she comes to the window
and throws 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 he ever read Of,
and decides to obtain guitar. 1t is
some days before he can muster up
courage enough to speak to his mother
about buying guitar, and he wouldn't
dare speak to his father about it. His
mother had noticed that he had seemed
unwell lately, and as she watched him
mop:ng around and signing, she has
felt that he is having his young life sap
ped away by study, or that worms are
feeding upon his damask stomach. The
old man, who has been there, knows
that the kid is in love, and his receipt
would be wedding onions. OF carrying
in coal, but the good mothers tender
heart is touched, and she consents to
the guitar scheme, and shortly after
wards there is a weird, ghostly sound
coming from the attic that is cross be-
tween the @olian music of breeze
signing through window screen, and a
couple OF eats tuning up for a goose
berry-bush symphony in E-tlat, with
Doot-jaek 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 accom-
paniment to a love song, and put on q
velvet jacket, trimmed with gold lace,
wide sombrero, and go to the house
of his girl and MARBLE through the
black moustache which he is sure will
put in an appearance on his lip. 0, how
he suffers, 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 of
his fingers, about which time he is sur
! prised by his father, who follows up the
strange, weird sound, and takes the boy
by the nap of the neck and in two min
utes shakes the love all out of him and
l.
the barn. There is no one thing that
will take the incipient fourteen year old
love out of n boy like moving away hay
in barn. He does not have time to
dream of the Spaniard with the guitar,
and the beautiful girl at the easement
| dressed in flowing robes, and her haiI
| gathered in a blue ribbon. He has to
pitch hay or be covered up and so he
| pitches hay. The guitar period is one
of the most critical periods in the life OF
a boy. If he succeeds in learning tC
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 time
OUT he is a dude, whose sole ambition
IS to be called upon to sing, and he will
| try to look sweet, and will sing love
songs at private parties, with his hand
III his bosom, and think tue ladies al
yearn for him, when they feel as though
| they would like 10 take him across theii
/ knees, and caress him with the press
board. He will be no good on earth,
and will haunt music stores, and have
no ambition but TO 90 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 become;
his sole care, and he never amounts tt
row of pins. When boy arrives a
the guitar period and begins to g
around as though he was too weak Il
walk and too lazy to eat, and crawfs of
to read novels, and signs when hi:
mother looks lovingly at him. then i:
the time to wake him up, and the father
~ the only one to do it. 1t has got tC
be done right away, or it will be ever
lastingly too late, for every day tina
the fever is allowed 10 remain in hii
system makes it harder TO break it up
Some fathers can talk boy out of thu
guitar disease and show him that he il
liable to graduate as a dude, and some
try the method of shaking, One maj
was very successful with his boy, by fol
lowing him to the attic and catchin!
him fumbIing the guitar, and takin!
him by the collar with one hand, AM
the guitar by the neck with the other
and wearing up the guitar over tn
lower level of the boys spine, and send
ing the boy ont into the pasture to wea
calf and teach it to drink out of
pail, but that always seemed littl
. harsh, as we had to pay for the guita
in in5tallments afterwards, and tn
mother OF the calf drove us over tn
fence real spry. However, boy want
to be attended to at the guitar period
and shown the folly of it, or he wi
nate himself forever after. When pg
rents find it coming on they should cor
suit each other, and take prompt actio
or the boy that is their pride will 6
through life singing through his most
'.Odly Paddy Blossom" or 80, Cut
. O, Cub, with Be, the Bood is Beebing.
+ -Peck'S Sun.