The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-14
THE VILLAGE TRADEMARK.
item for the Indianapolis Journal.

The picture of Anthony Trollope, accompany
ing his autobiography, represents that genial good
creature with his hands sunk in his trousers
pockets. He confesses that in his youth he was
the very worst form of lout-while his mother
was on this side of the water, finding fault with
American manners.
The traditional Uncle Sam carries his hands
in the pockets of his striped trousers but does
the traditional Briton, don't you know, in all
London wood-cutsl Long have I studied this
habit of the masculine being, and carefully tried
to class and label the man who does not try to
return to his ancient four-footed posture by way
of his pockets, Generally he is the busy man in
the city. He has no time for sauntering and
hanging to his own sides. His dress is trinity
adjusted, and his hands and mind are
leaping beyond those saddles of ease, which you
would think were lotus stuffed, but which really
carry perhaps bunch of keys and plug of
navy"
Hands in the trousers pockets constitute the
village trademark. 1t is the sign of the rural or
semi-rural man. Thus old Noah probably saun-
tered after the food, talking over crop prospects
with Shem, Ham and Japheth. He had no quid
to turn over in his mouth, but ne could give his
pocket hitch and squint along the Shiny levels,
femarking that he ''never seen poorer chance
for stand O corn"
Yet the men on whom this trademark is
stamped are as diverse as people from different
planets: The small-town lawyer has an arrogant
dig he Strengthens himself in the encounter of
wits on the street corner, and you think his fists
must appear in the neighborhood of his boots. In
his throng oflisteners the laboring man is weight
ing with heavy fists pair of dirty brown
jeans, but his attitude expresses patience and
receptivity. He knows he 'cant
talk" but he can indorse with a wag
of the head his chosen representative,
the lawyer, or with counter-wags he can help
put the same man down when he fails of attain
ing greatness.
There is the respondent grip of the merchant
at his pocket Innings when business is dull the
slouch of the loafer, sunk half up to his elbows
as IN qulcksand; the sentimental hold which
the village young man seems to keep on his low
pressed heart, for fear the davis or the girl at
his side should pick at it. There is the cropping
OF the old man, always after some tough old
storm or food or cholera summer And there is
the determined thrusting down of closed fists of
little weakened money maker who seldom lifts
calculating eye from the ground, and crowds
his overcoat back in the coolest weather that he
may take grip of his dearest belongings, and
plow lrresistaby forward with his body bent
You expect to hear him remark 'Yap-yap-yap!r
like fierce terrier walking unwilling on his hind
feet.
The grubbers in trousers pockets and those
who hang for support in coat-pockets are en-
tirely different classes Your coat pocket
lnhaoltant is an aristocrat. His very
popularity indicates his having been brought up
with superiuous garments. He never has
dwelt as close to natures heart as this denizen
of the lop-eare trousers.
knew youth who bore so heavily upon his
natural supports that they could scarcely carry
him day without bursting at the seams and
opening wide mouths on his hips to cry for the
mercy which he never granted. But the trouser-
pocketst of trouser pocketists is the village boy
who goes down nearly to his arm-pits in his first
pair and never comes well out of them until he
has grown old and died and had his arms
stiffened across his breast. The elephant-eared,
dirty, fshworm- smelling pockets of the small
town boy, are the wells from which he draws his
manly pride. He envelops himself in them
when he walks up to the other boy and says
LES see you do it, now-will vel" And out of
them dart the thunderbots of his fists in time to
do their best work. Therein he again settles
VIGOROUSLY to carry off a black eye while the
other boy bellows down the alley bleeding at
the nose and anxious to reach his mother
have sometimes thought young chicken
cocks have pockets in which they rest the front
part of their wings, so like to boys going home
from proud battle field when they crow
And what would the boy do when he is pun
ished at school, if be had not those trouser
caverns to sulk in2 Where else would he find all
the lessons which slip out of his headl The
trade mark is early stamped upon him, and in
all his life it never occurs to him that he would
be more beautiful animal to look at if he
weaned his hands from his trousers pockets
or that he is branded with anything in particu-
lar His brothers and his cousins and his uncles
have gone into their trousers pockets more or
less during the span of his experience, and if his
sons and grandSons do not ride the same sacks
the influences of heredity will suddenly ceas
and the sound of strong uncultivated folk
talk be heard no more in the land. NJ. nc.