The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1888-06-07
BYSCLINKsCALES & LANGSTON.
STOLEN FRUIT
Always Tastes the Sweetest to a Boy.
atlanta Constitution.

Always Tastes the Sweetest to Boy.
Atlanta Constitution.
| visited a lady in 10y travels who was
not calm and serene, for some boys had
slipped up and stolen the young mock.
ing birds from the nest she had been
watching SO long. "And only to think p
she said, ''two of the boys were preachers
SONS, and I told them one day not to
take the birds, and the next day they
came while I was gone and took them.''
/ Well, birds nest is very trying
thing to boy, whether heis preachers
son OF not. It strains him. He is
almost obliged to have it. It is as bad as a
watermelon to darky. There has been
many a chapter written about the sin Of
robbing bird nests, but the robbing goes
on about the same. The nest is so Gun.
ningly made and the eggs are 80 pretty.
1t is prize for boy, and then there is
a feeling of triumph in having found
what was hidden. The same feeling
inclines man to 60 fshing-not for the
love of the fish, but the love Of the sport.
he loves to beat the fish at their own
game. He loves to catch them because
they don't want to be caught. Some
body sent Mr.. Cleveland a fine salmon
the other day, and he said he envied the
man who caught it. It looks like very
small business for large man to take
pleasure in, but it is nature, and we can't
help it. Daniel Webster said that
nobody liked to fish except gentlemen
and vagabonds. He was mistaken. All
classes like to fsh, but nobody but gen.
tlemen and vagabonds have time. The
good book says: "I will give thee
dominion over the beasts of the field and
the fish of the sea and the fowls of the
air" And so We want it, and the more
they resist US the more we want it. No.
body wants to shoot chicken or to catch
one in trap, but We will hunt all day
for quai or squirrels or hawks, just
because they are wild and won't submit
to us. I saw hundreds of squirrels in q
park at Memphis, but nobody wanted
them, for they we're tame, and would eat
nuts from your hand. We prefer a wild
rat to tame squirrel.
Now, I am not excusing boy for rob.
bing birds nest, for it is cruel-more
cruel than to catch a fsh, for fish is a
lower order of living creatures, and does
not enjoy life like a bird. A fish has
not got much more sense nor feeling than
monkey wrench, but it does distress
the old birds very much to take their
young away or to break up their nests.
Then, again, the boys don't understand
the nice distinctions between "meum and
tuum," mine and thine. They don't
know where the line is between wild
things that belong to everybody and
those that are near the house and belong
to somebody. Why, one day the impu-
dent, i'll hammered rascals came in my
meadow and killed the squirrels We had
been raising for years. complained to
some boys once because they robbed my
mockiug birds z t, and they said, why,
that nest was on the other side of the
road. Some folks have to post their
lands to keep intruders of, but that don't
keep them off very much, and the hunters
set him down as stingy, selfish old cuss.
They tramp down my corn every year to
catch a few fsh in the creek, and as for
watermelons, We have quit planting them
far away from the house. A white boy
about sixteen years old will steal melon
as quick as a negro, and he will be
meaner about it, for he will plug dozen
to find ripe one one. A white man
who will steal at all will steal anything,
and he always carries some envy or
malice along with him, but negro just
takes little things that he thinks you
don't need and won't miss, and he is
really much obliged to you for having a
surplus. He has no malice and no envy.
He is glad you are rich. 1 had an old
ax, and one day when I wanted it I
couldn't find it. I made such fuss
about it that one of the darkies brought
it home and said he was jes kespin' it for
me till I wanted it. But white man
came along one day and stole the new
one, and when my nabor who made the
handle saw it at his woodpile and asked
him where he got it, he said he found it
in the big road. He has got it yet, I
reckon, for never troubled him about
it. had rather negro would steal
from me than white mamie does it 30
tenderly and so innocently.
"Uncle Jack, they say that you darkies
are stealing coal from the cars every
Saturday night when they stop over for
sunday7"
"Now, boss, you know dat ain't no
such thing. neber has tech bit of
dat coal. Maybe de chillun take little
now and den, but de railroad neber miss
what dey take. Dem big long kyars jes
80 full dey ruined over" and he laughed
a right honest good -natured laugh.
Ralph lost his knife and Ned found it
and swapped it off quick, and when it
was found out he took high ground and
said he "foun dat knife away down yon.
der by de big gate" There are lots of
folks who think that finding q thing
gives them right to it. Some boys find
marbles and balls and pencils, and keep
them-most all boys do some little mean
things on the sly, things they are
ashamed of afterwards. I helped some
boys steal watermelons once and was
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