Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-06-03
JNTON SPECTATOR AND GENERAL ADVERTISER.-
The Little Barefoot Boy.
AS HE APPEARS TO BILL NYE IN KATE
GREENAWAY PANTALOONS.

AS HE APPEARS TO BILL NYE IN KATE
GREENAwAY PANTALOONs.
With the moist and misty spring, with
the pink and white columbine of the wild
wood and the breath of the cellar and the
incense of burning overshoes in the back
yard, comes the little barefoot boy with
fawn- colored hair and droop in his pam
falcons.
Poverty is not the grand difficulty with
the little barefoot boy of spring. 1t is the
wild, ungovernable desire to wiggle his toes
in the ambient air, and to soothe his par
boiled heels in the yielding mud.
see him now in my minds eye, making
his annual appearance like rheumatic
housefy stepping high, like blind horse.
He has just left his shoes in the woodshed
and stepped out on the plaza to proclaim
that violet eyed spring is here. All over
the land the gladiolus bulb and the ice-man
begin to swell. The south wind and the
newborn calf at the barn begin to sigh
The oak tree and the dude begin to put on
their spring apparel. All nature is gay
The thrush is warbling in the asparagus
orchard, and the prima donna does her
throat up in red flannel rag to wait for an
other season.
are not so certain and unfailing as the little
barefoot boy whose white feet are thrust in
to the face of the approaching season. Five
months from now those little dimpled foot,
now so bleached and tender, will look like
mud-turtle' back and the superior and
leading toe will have a bandage around it
tied with piece Of thread.
Who would believe that the budding
hoodlum before us, with the yellow chill
blain on his heel and the early spring toad
in his pocket, which he will present to the
timid teacher as testimonial of his regard
this afternoon, may be the Moses who will
lead the American people forty years hence
into the glorious sunlight Of promised
land.
He may possibly do it, but he doesn't look
like it now.
Yet John A. Logan and Samuel ]. Tilden
were once bare-footed boys, with suspen-
der apiece. It doesn't seem possible, does
it?
| How can we imagine at this time Julius
Caesar and Hannibal Hamlin and Lucretia
| Borgia at some time or other stubbed their
bare toes against root and filled the horizon
with pianissimo walls.
The barefoot boy of spring will also pro-
coed to battle in the river as soon as the ice
and the policeman are out He Will choose
point on the boulevard where he can get
good view Of those who pass, and in COM
pany with eleven other little bare foot boys,
he will clothe himself in an Adam vest, a
pair of bare skin pantaloons, a Greek slave
overcoat and yard of sunlight and gaze
earnestly at those who 60 by on the other
side. Up and down the bank FASTING each
other with mud, the little barefoot boys of
spring chase each other, with their vertebr@
sticking into the warm and sleepy air, while
| down in the marsh, where the cat-tails and
the broad flag sand the peach-can and the
deceased horse grow, the bull-frog is twit-
tering to his mate.
Later on the hoarse voice of rude pa
rental shorter is heard approaching, and
twelve slim Cupids with sunburned backs
are inserted into twelve little cotton shirts
and twelve Respondent pairs of pantaloons
! hang at halfmast to twelve home made
suspenders, and as the cleaning gathers
about the old home twelve boys back up
against the ice-house to cool off, while the
engaged parent hangs up the buggy whip
in the old place. BILL NYE.
Hudson, Wis, April %.