The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-06-16
General Training.

| General Training.
TWAS general training day. If you
don't know what that means, ask grand
ma. John knew; and he wasn't deaf.
Not he. Nobody heard the drum and
tlfe that morning any palmer than he
did. don't know that it sounded
sweeter to any boys ears. Yet he
wasn't rushing alone the streets of
| Windsor with the rest of the boys, eager
| to join the procession. Instead, he was
out in the back lot, away up in the
northwest corner, hoeing potatoes with
| all his might. A nice little patch of
potatoes; none better looking in all the
| town of Windsor. Idoubt if there were
any that received such care. Every hill
| of them belonged to John, and it was
about all that he did own in the world.
unless L except an old arithmetic with
one of the covers gone entirely, and the
other hanging by half its back; but
every problem in that arithmetic John
could do! And there were some hard
ones
He hoed away. The band was play
ing, and he tried to make his hoe keep
time to the music, while he whistled it
loud and clear.
10 Parsons leaned over the rail fence
and looked at him
:. You don't say you amt a-going!'
said he.
"Well," said John, 81 didn't saw it.
so far as / know, but can, if you want
me to-"
Well, now, if you amt one, of EN-!
Why not?''
"Why not what?"
"Why not amt you going to general
training, when every man and boy in this
town is on hand?" 1...
"Got other business. Every man and
boy can do all the work that there is to
to do at general training without me,
and my potatoes are spelling to be hoed,
and this is the only day Eve got"
"Why can't you hoe 'em tomorrow
Just as well?" .t" ~"
because tomorrow I've got to 90
and help Governor Wolcott hoe his;
there's acres of them, and it will take
me all the rest of the season; before I'd
have another chance at mine they'd
SPOIL sure; no, sir, I've looked at the
sum on all sides, and worked it up
every way could think of. and the only
answer l got was that / must stay at
home and hoe. I'm training, though
Don't you hear my hoe keep time to the
music?'
Glow many potatoes do you expect
to get out of that patch?"
10 said the word "patch" in very
contemptuous way. The fact was, he
might as well have told his friend John
just what he thought, that that potato
patch was very small affair.
Dunno" said John, cheerily. "Just
as many as | can coax into growing for
me-"
"And what are you going to do with
them when you get them?"
"Sell every blessed one; father has
promised me seed enough to plant again,
next season, so l sha MT have to lay by
any,"
''Well, what do you want to sell
them for. What are you after, any
how?''
John stopped his busy hoe and
leaned on it for about one minute. while
he said in slow and very impressive
voice:
"There's a good many things would
like to get, and there are two or three
things that | mean to get if | can with
these potatoes; but there's one thing
that I'm after with all the strength there
is in my hoe, and that L m bound to haze;
and that's one of the new Biographies
with pictures of the rivers, and towns,
and everythingn' ...... .....
"Ho!' said 10; and the way he took
his arms off the fence, and stood up to
put force into the word, gave you to I'M
Il md bot ba
ion of Biographies, and thought that
John Fitch was simpleton. ..
He went to general training, and had
a good time, l presume; but whether
he did or not, no one will ever know;
for so far as | can learn, nobody ever
heard of him again, though / suppose
his mother and few friends knew all
about him.
And John kept at his hoeing; and
then when that was finished he went
home and did the CHORES
Hard work, was it? OF course it was
hard; but then wait bit. To-day
there is not well-informed boy in the
country who doesn't know more or less
about John Fitch. Among other things
they know, that few years later, when
he had earned his geography, and
studied it, and studied several other
things, one day he went gliding up the
Delaware River on a steamboat of his
own planning, the first one that was
ever used in the world I'm inclined
to'think that he hoed his patch OF po-
tatoes to some purpose.
The truth was, he had general
training every day in the year, and
trained his mind to think and to PLAN
Pansy. .H.