The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1884-04-05
That Boy.
A few of the ways in which he breaks the
commandments laid upon him.


When you see boy coming down the
street with ball of cord in his hand, and
serious look on his face, it is sign that
if you cast your eyes upward, you can see
that boys kite dancing nimbly in the air
to the lascivious pleasing of whole colony
of telephone wires.
When you see boy going along in the
merry, merry sunshine, with his hat in his
hand, shaking his hair with pine stick to
get it dry, now and then leaning his head
on one side, pounding the other side with
his hand, and frantically kicking his feet
in the air in desperate efforts to get the
water out of his ears or when you see him
holding warm stone to his ear for the
same purpose, it is true sign that you may
think of that boy, by and by, standing
speeches. when his mother asks him how
his shirt came to be wrong side out You
must not run down the street in the direc-
ton of his home, under the impression that
the boy is being basely murdered You
can't kill boy with skate strap. And in
hoe signo you will know that boy has
been in swimming, when he should have
been at school, learning that 'Twenty-six
propositions are followed by the accusa-
tive" all the way from ad TO ultra.
When you see boy, about 5.45 P. NJ,
with ink on his nose, and the CRIME of
chalk on his hands, his hair disheveled and
the two upper buttons of his jacket gone,
his collar rumpled, and his necktie twisted
awry, and suspicious looking flush, and
two or three scratches adjoining his face, you
will know that he was "kep' in after
school, and was tainted for the same by
another boy when he came out and if you
want to know the rest of it, it will not be
necessary to go into particulars but just
ask him (Which whipped p If joyous
look of triumph dances in the exultant
eyes, you will know that just around the
corner you can find Il boy, with a bleeding
nose, and a generally demoralized facade.
But if the lad you question looks down
cast, multis cum lachrymis begins his ora
ton, like Divatiacus, by saying: "Well,
he was great deal bigger'n me- you may
know that your boy got clicked"
When you see boy, with the pocket of
his pantaloons bullying out until it looks
like great humble bee laden for the hive,
while he walks along trying to look as thin
as split lathe, and wearing profound
expression of supernatural innocence, you
may know, without referring to this code
of signals, that boy has been lingering in
somebody's orchard, and dosent care to
have undue publicity given to facts that
only concern him personally.
When you see boy on the distant hill
side, suddenly leap up into the soft, sum-
mer air, holding one bare foot tenderly but
firmly in the welded fingers of both hands,
while he hops around in regular but excited
orbits, at the same time voicing his grief
with wailing shrieks, mellowed by the sunny
distance, then, without going to the tele-
phone, you may know that barefoot boy
has trod upon the busy bee that nestled in
the perfumed clover.
And wherever and whenever you see him,
in mischief or out of it--that is, just COM
ing out of it or just ready to get into some
bad, or with many fearful
failures and disgraceful stumbles in trying
to be good, forgetting your commandments
which thunder upon him by the hundred,
well nigh as readily and repeatedly as you
forget the ten that Infinite Wisdom has
laid upon you, in all his noise, his poor
little, struggles, temptations, triumphs and
failures, his piteous little troubles, and his
fearful, honest penitence, in all the light
ness Of boys life, your heart must grow
mellow and tender for the little germ of
manhood, so rich with seeds of strength
that will ripen by and by, for good or for
evil, as you walk and live before the boy
ever as you look at him, remember what
you were thirty or forty years ago, and
say: God bless the boy. r.. r. Bur-