The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-05-14
TIM Stills.


Sure Way, and Wong and a Dam
gerous Way.
His real, full name was Timothy
Dwight Thompson. but we called him
Tim for short and Stills for high. Tim
was not the smartest boy in the school,
nor was he the best-looking. But he
was constitutionally ''stuck-up." He
wanted to be above the rest of us in
some way, and as he could not get to
the head of his classes because he was
lazy. or become popular among the
girls, because he was awkward and con-
ceited, he determined to try stills. He
began with pair that lifted him only a
few inches from the ground, and he
soon learned to run and jump on them,
to the wonder and admiration of the
smaller children. It is surprising what
a boy can do with pair of stills, if he
gives all his time and all the brains he
has to them. The question, however,
for the boy is not: How much can do
with stills? but how much of my life
and my intellect will it pay me to invest
in sitting? That is question, by the
way, that it would be well for some
young men to ask in regard to base
ball, bicycles and sundry other things
which are popular without being either
useful or ornamental.
Tim, as | have said, was ambitious.
He was determined to get up in the
world. Proud of his success with his
first pair of stills, he soon made high
er pair and then another higher still.
At length he announced that he would
appear next day on a fourth edition
that would lift his two feet three feet
from the ground. We were all early at
the school-house to see Tim and his new
stills. Presently he came in sight, his
carroty hair waving like banner while
he ran with his extra wooden legs-a
small boy over seven feet high! He APP
preached the bank on which the school
house stood in gallant style. But in
trying to run up the bank one of his
stills struck stone and he fell. He was
going so fast that he fell very hard. He
lay stunned and helpless among the
stones. We lifted him up and carried
him home. The doctor was sent for
and found broken bone Tim was
laid up for months and came out at last
a cripple. He was never able to mount
his stills again, but had to go on
crutches the rest of his life.
have not seen Tom Stills for more
than forty years, but am often remind
ed of him when / see men and women
or boys and girls who are impatient to
get up in the world, but don't care how
they acquire reputation or money.
think of the stills and the fall and the
crutches, and wish that could give them
word of warning.
You all read in the newspapers last
year about Fred Ward, in New York.
He was like my old schoolmate Tim.
He was not smarter than many other
young men, nor more ambitious. But
he was more unscrupulous. He got
two sons of a great General, one under
each arm, and with this pair of stills he
we went into Wall street and strutted
about as if he was head and shoulders
above all the old financ;ers. He Dor
rowed money here and there in the
name of Ward, Grant & Co. But he
soon found that pride goeth before
destruction, and naughty spirit before
fall. His stills struck stone and he
fell.
The scholar who gets keys and copies
out from them the working of his sums
in arithmetic, who uses translations
Eve used to call them "ponies'') in
stead of grammar and dictionary in
preparing his Latin lessons, or who
copies composions out of some old
book that he thinks the teacher is not
familiar WITH may pass examinations,
and get credit marks, and even gradu-
ate with honor. But he starts out on
stills, and the road we all have to tread
through life is up hill and full of
stones. Soon the stiltitied scholar will
get a sad fall, and nobody will pity him.
Belle Bronson was 1.-THE belle" of my
native town. She was called the most
beautiful and talented girl in all that
region. She always had a crowd of adj
mirers around her. 1 lived next
door, and being much younger and in
innate with Bellies little brothers, l
found out just how she did it. She was
naturally a sallow, angular girl. But
she was an artist. She could fix her
self up, as the boys expressed it, ''to
fits" She used paints, cosmetics and
cotton extravagantly, but she knew just
how to use them. And then, having a
good memory, she would learn by heart
choice bits of poetry and witty repartees.
And so she went into society prepared
to shine. And she did; but it was all
borrowed light. She had no beauty and
she had no wit, but she acquired a mar
Vicious reputation for both. Poor
Belle, if she had been satisfied when
John Jones, M. c., asked her to marry
him she might have done we'll. But she
was determined to do better. She
went to Washington, saying that she
was going to fascinate Martin Van
Buren,, then President and a widower.
Nothing less than being mistress
OF the White House would sat-
isfy her ambition. Her paint and
her poetry failed to catch the sage
OF Undertook. She came home disap-
pointed. Her former admirers gradu-
ally deserted her, and when saw her
last she was living in little mountain
village in house with two rooms and
a garrett She looked twenty wears
older than she was. She married a
man whom she had refused and rid
iculed in the daVs of bar. y,rida II.