St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-03-06
FALLING In LOVE.
The Father OF the Bad Boy Tells OF His
Experience With Susan.
a Tender Passion Inspired by the
Union of Blue and Gray.

INTEREST anybody, because you have all been
In the same fix; so l will not say any more
about it. What! you want me to go ahead
and tell about it? On, go way! There
was nothing to it, anyway. Oh, well, of
course, ii you insist, l will do nv best.
must have been about years old when
Susan began to get in her work on me.
At first she pitied me, think, because
Of a large blue patch on the
seat OF my gray pants. To her
artistic eye the patch and the pants did not
match, but when the boys made fun of me,
Susan took my part and in a few well
chosen remarks she convinced them that
blue patch on gray pants was the very
height of fashion. and had the proud salts
faction, within week, of seeing several of
the boys wearing blue patches on their
sleeps gray pants. That was what | called
triumph, and it was Susan's great head
that brought it about. and l tied to Susan.
Shortly after that l had my hair cut, and
Susan had an other chance to do me good
turn. There were no BARRIERS in those days,
and there was some of the most fearful and
wonderful hair cutting that ever was seen.
My hair was red, and very thick, and it had
TO be cut A cousin of mine, young man
who lived at our house, said he would cut
1t. He went at it with dull pair of shears,
and he probably made the worst job of hair
cutting that ever was. 1t some places he
cut 1t clear down to the scalp, and in other
places he left the hair in punches. When
he got through with my hair, and looked
In the glass,
WANTED TO DIE.
My head looked like an old fox-skin robe
that has been moth-eaten and chewed by
cats. 1t looked like fox squirrel that had
been shaken to death by a dog. He cut off
Vah hof, kh,k
over my ears. Any man who ever had his
hair cut when boy by an amateur who
seemed inspired to do the worst job on
| record can appreciate my feelings. My
hair was cut Saturday night, and had all
day Sunday for the hair to grow out and to
get accustomed to myself, and no boy ever
prayed for his hair to grow as l did. Mon
day went to school. My idea was to get
into school just as the bell rung, and not
take off my hat until l got to my seat, and
| then bury my face i'll my book and never
look up, thinking it would blow over
| before recess. My cousin had told all the
boys that he wanted them, as a special
favor. to look at my hair. as he had cut it
himself. He wanted to build up reputa-
ton as a hair-cutter that would go thupder-
ing down the ages, and he did. When I
pulled my hat off, and the red bristles that
had been confined began to raise up. some
one of the big boys snorted right cut. l
think it was my cousin, and | mentally re-
solved to kill him when | got big enough,
but before got around to it he was killed
| in the war in 1864. Wen, that snort was a
| signal. and every scholar in school Just
bursted right out laughing The teacher
was going to work to whip the whole school
for laughing when he saw my head, and he
bursted out. Well. it was no use to try to
run that school with that head Of hair, so
the teacher told me l could wear my hat.
LIVED UNTIL RECESS,
though how did it L do not know, except
that l had determined to go down to the
pond, cut hole in the ice and jump in.
l thought how sorry the boys would be,
when they had to attend my funeral. that
they had driven me to a suicides grave. AT
recess Susan came to me. She always came
to me at recess. My father kept a grocery
| and always had an assortment of candy
and raisins and dried herring in my pockets.
and Susan yearned for me. Some said
Susan had morbid appetite, and at this
late day think she had. though at that
time thought it was me and not the con-
tents of my pockets that she yearned for.
AS she ate my raisins and candy she re-
marked on my improved appearance since L
| had my hair cut. She said it was all the
style East. She had read in a fashion
paper, the Brother Jonathan, 1 think
it was that red hair was more
stylish than any other color, and that
it was worn cut short and in scallOps. L
was much relieved, and gave her all my
raisins. and before recess was over she had
convinced all the boys that their hair was
too long. and they had all engaged my
cousin to cut their hair that night. was
happy to know that the same bandit who
had chewed my hair off was going TO cut
theirs. So l decided not to die, any way
until the next day. The next morning all
the boys had their hair cut like mine. some
even worse, because my cousin seemed tc
want to see how bad he could cut hair when
he tried, and there was no more laughing
on the back seats at me. | think | appre-
ciated Susan. She had saved my life on
two occasions, once by causing
BLUE PATCHES ON GRAY PANTS
to become fashionable. and again by max
ing hair. cut with a knife and fork. OF
chewed off in spots, the latest style, and
loved her. ! wanted to show my apprecia-
ton of what she had done to save me from
a suicides grave. l wanted to load her with
Jewels. | had read about women loaded
with Jewels, and i wanted to see Susan in
that fix, if l could. One day Dutch emf
grant traded an old china bowl pipe, with a
long stem, to my father for some crackers
and cheese and the pipe fell to me as
curiosity. I noticed at the joints of the
stem there were rings, or ferrules of Ger
: man silver. so took the stem apart and Sc
cured the rings. One Of the rings seemed
to me very rich and gaudy, and l scraped
the nicotine off of it with rat-tail
/, file. and presented it to Susan. L
have seen rich jewelry since, diamonds and
everything. but no ring ever looked richer
to me than that German silver ring did on
Susan's finger She was the only girl that
sported ring, but she was not proud. She
spoke to the other scholars just the same,
and she ate my candy and raisins as of old.
.. | do not mean to say was proud of my
: ability to- deck Susan out in jewelry. but
there was a certain satisfaction about it i'm
possible to describe. The winter passed
, into spring, and spring into summer, and
: the course of true love ran quite smooth.
At length there came change. My father
! sold his grocery, and was cut off from
supplies of candy andEraisins and smoked
, herring. l did not care so much for my
self but feared Susan would suffer. At
, first she did not show it. but when days
passed and there was no candy, no dried
, herring, no nothing, there sprang up a cold
ness between Susan and me that was pain
, tul. Then / began to realize that
WITHOUT CANDY TWAS NO GOOD.
About this time young farmer over In
? Bark Woods began to visit Susan fire.
, Quently. neglected to say that Susan wa
about six wears older than | was. WheE
my hated r-r-ival appeared l was broke up.
a l thought of the love, candy and jewelry ]
had lavished on the object of my affections,
and the return / was receiving. and demon
took possession of me. ! brooded over il
/ for two days, and then | went out to take