Smyrna times., 1883-07-18
WHOLE NO. l,462.
The Bilious Barnacle.


moral courage some day to uncoil the
tendrils of his heart from the cluster
ing idols of the household, to grapple
with outrageous fortune, ought to be
taken by the ear and led away out in
to the great untried realm of space.
While the great world throbs on, he
sighs and refuses to throb. While
other young men put ON their 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
groceries of his father, shivers on the
brink of life's great current and sheds
the scalding tear.
He is the yOung-man- afraid-Of-the-
sawbuck, the human being with the
unlaundered spinal column. The only
vital question that may be said to agi-
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 father
in-law. Finally he settles it and COM
promises by living alternately with
each.
How the old folks yearn to see him.
How their aged eyes light up when he
comes with his growing family to de-
YOUR everything in 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 shimnering sunlight at
the tail of two year old. He never
dared to have any fun because he
might bump his nose and make it
bleed on his clean clothes. He never
surreptitiOusly cut the copper wire off
the lightning rod 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 apple of boyhood
and did not slide down hill because he
would have to pull his sled back to the
top again.
Now he borrOws other peoples news
papers, eats the provisions of others,
and sits on the counter of the grocery
till the proprietor calls him counter
irritant.
There can be nothing more un-
American than this flabby polyp, this
, one-horse tadpole 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 bankrupt
s than a weak and bilious barnacle on
e the clam-shell of home.
e The true American would rather
work himself into luxury or the lunatiC
= asylum than to hang like great war
upon the face of nature. This young
man is not in accordance with the
II Yankee schedule, and yet l do no
q want to say that he belongs to any othel
g nation. Foreign powers may hav'
e been wrong; transatlantic nations ma,
q have erred, and the system of European
g government may have been erroneous
h but would not come out and charg
,e them with this horrible responsibility
?. They never harmed me, and l will no
# tarnish their fair fame with this grav
10 indictment.
le He will breathe certain amount G
}: atmosphere and absorb a given amour
a of feed for few years, and then tn
is fGll-grown biped will leave the hom;
re- nest at last. The undertaken wi
ID come and get him and take what ther
), is left of him out to the cemetery
IL That will be all. There can be N
ne deep abiding sorrow for him here
st public buildings will not be draped i
1e mourning, and you can get your ma
va at the usual hours when he dies. TIL
no band will not play a sadder strai
i'd because the fag-end of human failul
he has tapered down to death, and th
n soft and shapeless features are stil
of You will have no trouble getting
re draft cashed ON that day, and the gidd
ed throng will join the picnic as they ha
he made arrangements to do.-Detri
do Free Press.