The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-07-15
About Cheerful Men.

Ifcheerful men wereselling for 10 cents
apiece, and I fad $4,000 to throw away, l
wouldn't buy one of them. / used to
have positive reverence for smiling,
grinning, bland.voiced man. Many o
time I've met Smith or Green or White
on my way down town, and it would jump
my soul a foot high to hear him call
out:
swell, my boy, beautiful morning, eh?
Isn't everything just lovely? Why, l
seem to be floating in mid air Why, sir,
I wouldn't trade this earth for all the
heavens ever preached about by the
ministers. Have a cigar? No? Then
have n drink No? Dear me what
can do to brighten you up and make
YOU feel like an angel on roller skates Z"
And I'd stand off and look at him and
wonder if thela beyond the skies did
really contain a happier soul. All the
old hypocrite I got to know in after
years that his children were afraid of him,
his wife trembled as he entered the door,
and that it was his daily habit to growl
out as he left the door:
"Wood! 1 bought 81 worth last week.
Ifthat's gone we'll 60 without until Sat.
urday. You are the mbst extravagant
woman in Detroit. I believe you burn it
up to spite me. Soap2 Didn't I get
bar last Saturday, Ifyou let the chill
dren play horse with the soap you must
take the consequences. Go down on the
ferry? I'd like to see myself Juggling
three or four younguns and limping
wife around town."
Your habitually cheerful man is m
old fraud and liar. He is we'll dressed,
while his children are the rag. bags of the
neighborhood. He has dollar for ci-
gars when his wife wears bonnet six
years old. He passes for whole.souled
fellow with the public, butis fault-6nd-
er at home. You'll see him taking the
cool breezes on the river, while his family
are weltering in astufy house on some
back street.
/ want to see man grin when there's
anything to grin at, but when Green gets
up in the morning and declares he hasn't
had meal fit to eat for the last three
months, and that he can't see why his
wife's always groaning around and his
children always whining, he has no busi-
ness to stop the first man he meets, with
smile clear back to his ears, and shout
out:
"Why, old fel, how solemn you look |
Brace up, mantle is worth the living
ten times over !"
used to reverence Green. He bad a
grip Of the hand like carpenters wise
-he had voice as bland as June-he'd
make consumptive believe that nothing
more than sore heel was the matter. l
used to lie in ombust for him just to hear
his hearty voice and see his serene coun-
tenancskahu I'd go about my days work
wondering what; sort of a guardian angel
he had. 1 found out one day when q
policeman had to go in and stop him from
beating his. wife.
When you find a man Tho can grin
over the servant girls jumping oft at an
hours notice, with wife fat in bed and
the children having scarlet fever look
around the eyes, don't you 60 off on q
fishing trip with him. When man can
soar among the angels with bill collectors
ringing his door bell-last weeks grocery
pillunpaid-the children wanting shoes
the rent running behind and his wife
coughing all night long, he's an Internal
old fraud and ought to be kicked. When
achap who has frozen the children, jawed
the cook and blasted his wife as sort of
morning tonic before leaving the house
meets you about block from the gate
and is troubled because you haven't got
your angels harp on your shoulder, keep
your, hand on any stray half dollar you
happen to have about you. He's mean
enough to steal chicken broth from boy
with a broken back.-M Quad IN Detroit
Eree Press.