Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1885-08-08
A FOOL FRIEND.
BILL NYE THINKS He IS WORSE THAN
BITTER Foe.

BILE Joy in going in search OF a bitter ana
irnplacable foe There is an exciting
hunger in the eye and IN the heart as we
follow him by day and camp on bis trail
at night. Then when we meet and mix
him UP with the green sward, and knock
his front teeth loose and swell up his
proud nose, and put on olive green and
cadet blue dado over his eye and cigar
cite pocket on his cheek, and erect little
knobs all over him in places where nature
did not design to have them, we walk
away with tic idea that we are taller and
wider and draw more water and exert
more influence than we did before. Even
when we ask the police judge how much
it viii be if we pay il in advance, and we
use up the funds in that way when we had
intended to invest them in other channels,
we can not say that we regret 1t If the
cause seemed just and the provocaton
great.
But what shall we do with the warm
personal friend who sits up nights to
love US, but hurts us in every corner by
his ndIscretion We can not whip him
and throw him away. We can not get
him shut up in an insane asylum, as 1t
was not designed for idiots. 1t was
made for people who once had brains
1t is conundrum which more than one
of us has given up.
If the fool friend could have bis jaws
locked with O time-eck, and then be fed
by an attendant through his vest pocket,
we could then set the time>lotk to open,
after election or just before breakfast on
the day of judgement, or at such other
date as we desired, and all would be well,
but you can not do that. The jaw OF the
fool friend wags on and on till the goose
of the one he loves best on earth is cook
ed to rich, deep brown.
An enemy may say mean things of you,
but they lose force, because people know
at once by his bitterness that he is your
enemy: but he who knows your inmost
heart, who knows what salary you re-
ceiye and how much it lacks of maintain
ing you, how mean you are in your fam
iIy and how pleasant you are in other
peoples families, how you smile through
the day and snore through the night, how
earnest you are in your labors toward re-
form in everything except your own hao-
its. and Thousand other little glimpses
into YOUR home life which none but a
friend may know, when he has no brains
to balance his warm affection tor you'
think what ruin he can furnish you at car
load rates.
In matters wholly political it is really
safer to have the endorsement of one who
is wise and wicked, sometimes. than the
earnest but misguided efforts of the man
whose motives are good but whose
brains in the hurry and confusion Incl
dent to creation, were bestowed upon a
large mouse-colored mule.
When your friend forgets himself, for
gets his business, f rgcts lis own interests
and his hopes of bright Immortality be-
You'd the grave In order to 60 ab'ut ard
do you good, when he goes without food
and sleep and rest that he may labor for
YOU. and at last when the campaign is
drawing toward close and all at once
YOU come upon the wreck and ruin that
marks the path way of the hurricane, and
you follow it in great bitterness for miles,
only at last to find that it is the work OF
YOUR friend, what can you do9 Can you
take club ard mash his smiling face?
Can you stab his warm heart, whose every
throb through life has been for youg Can
YOU send the swift-wlnged bullet crash
ing through the massive skull of your
friend. thus tearing the cobwebs loose
from his Uranium and allowing the gas to
escaped
Ali, no. Better far to accept defeat
than to stain your hands with the blood
of one whose very devotion 10 you has
showed YOU under so deep that you will
have to live on the leather end OF your
suspenders until relief can come.
/ sometimes think that if the fool -killer
would give little more attention to his
business. and would try little harder to
earn his salary, there would be less CON-
plant and less dissatisfaction on the part
of the intelligent taxpayer. Now, for in
stance, suppose that he should, prior to
each election, hold kind Of competitive
examination of fools. to close with a
grand tournament OF fool~sbot ut 30 yards
rise: or the fool could be made to pay
s..o. e.. i. i1ao,.oa he rpvnuua IN on