The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1885-12-17
THE BUSY LITTLE BOYS.
Pretty Halloween Story with a Moral
Attached.

Attached.
The BOYS had lots of fun at my house,
Halloween. You see the iron gate
through which William H. Vanderbilt
and Canon Farrar and Bill Nye and
Joseph Cook and Eugene Field and DR..
Newman and others of my friends
drive when they come to see me has
been shut for some three months, so
that the boys had to leave their car
riages outside and climb over. The
gate had sagged somehow and got
damned and rusted fast one way and
another until we couldn't get it open at
all. | sent for my neighbor. the black
smith, and he sent a man over. and the
man worked and filed. hammered and
twisted for an hour and couldn't move
it. lie gave it up and went away, and
the master-smith, a man who can shoe
an earthquake, came over and he
couldn't shake it. Then l tried dvna-
mite cartridge, paid for eight dollars
worth of glass in the neighbOrhood,
and set the gate tighter than ever. So
l just put placard. Paint on the
gate and when Russell Sage and Dick
Munkittrick and George w. Curtis and
the rest of the boys came around they
had to come in through the wood-shcd.
Well, last Halloween the village boys
were out in force. They were having
good times all around the neighbor-
hood, but didn't dream of their dis
turbing me. But about eleven p. m. |
heard them at the gate. They went at
it first in an off hand boyish lift-her-
right-off-the-hinges sort of way. Then
two or three more of them took hold;
then they grunted and lifted.
Then the whole crowd gathered
hold of her. / never saw so many
boys work so hard in my life. Some
of them cried. so unusual was the eXer-
ton. They painted and tugged and
strained and shouted in hushed whis-
pers. and fused with the catch, and
pulled at the hinges, and twisted and
grunted and paused for breath and con-
sultation. Once or twice they displayed
signs of WEAKNESS, but by showing
light ut a window | lent the Zest of
little danger to the affair, and as soon
as the light disappeared they went at il
again. About three o'clock in the
morning, however, they lifted her.
Sure as fate they got the old gate clear
off its hinges. They were too tired tc
carry it away, so they laid it down in
the street, and laughed and reioiced in
boyish style with what little breath they
had left. They were too utterly wore
out to have a@y more fun that night, So;
they went YEARLY and triumphantlj
home, saying they'd like to see any
man in America fix gate so asst they
couldn't lift it off. Next day told my
astonished neighbor, the master of the
forge, to straighten up the gate and
hang it again Then | told my land
lord that it took fourteen boys four
hours to get that miserable gate off; fif-
ty-SiX hours ut fifteen cents an hour,
eight dollars and forty cents, which l
had allowed on my rent; this paid me
Tor the glass | broke with the dynamite
and left me forty cents to blow in. l
was going to give it to the boys, but 1
reflected that they had all the fun they
wanted getting the gate off, so l spent
the forty cents for myself. Moral: If
you have piece of work you can't get
done just give party of boys an idea
that you don't want them to do it
Burdette, in Brooklyn Eagle.