The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1890-11-13
Chats With Boys.
IChristian Union.1

l have been spending some weeks at a
house in the country with some city boys,
and it has set me thinking. These boys
have had every advantage that money could
buy: good governessses when they were
little boys; good schools when they were
larger; travel at home and abroad. Every
thing that tends to make boys refined and
gentlemanly had been a part of their educa-
ton, and yet they were not as careful in dress
and department as many boys whom 1 have
met who had not enjoyed a fraction of thei
opportunity,
They had spent the entire summer in a
house in the mountains where they were
thrown with strangers more or less fire.
quently, but they dressed like tramps. They
would come to the table without combing
their hair, with hands not overclean, and
their clothes, had they been worn on the
streets of the city, would have excited pity
and charity. Buttons were off, seams ripped !;
they were dirty beyond decency. The shoes
these boys wore were never even brushed,
not even the dust brushed off them. And
when they came into the house directly from
the barnyard they were more than unpleas
ant
PERHAPS you think that some of these dis
agreeable features of dirt and untidiness
were not within boys power to help. |
think they are ] think every boy could and
should learn how to sew on button, how
to sew straight seam, how to mend rip
in a coatsleeve or trouserS-leg, how to
fasten loop on the back OF coat that
there may be no reason for its being thrown
on a chair or lying on the floor of closet all
night because it slipped from the hook. |
once heard an EXTREMITY bright and manly
college graduate, who had been in business
three years and compelled to live away, from
home, say that it would have been dollars
in his pocket, and saved him many SenSa-
tions of shame, if be had been able to darn
the holes in his sock>, when he did not feel
that be could throw them away. He always
felt as if everybody knew those holes wert
there and that he never spent any money
that seemed to him so uselessly spent as
when he paid tailor twenty-five cents for
sewing on button on his overcoat: lie felt
that his powers were not fully developed,
because he was not self-helpful.
Every time l looked at those two boys,
with ripped sleeves, buttons off, spotted and
and speckled vests and coats, l thought of
this young man, and saw one more evidence
of the truth of his declaration that every
boy shonld be taught to care as far as posi-
BILE for his own clothes. Have you ever nc
ticed the difference between the way boy
walks when his clothes are whole and in
order, and the way he walks when that same
suit is shabby and untidy? Why, l knew
boy in school whose parents were very
poor, and his clothes were always worn
and almost ragged. He always shuttied his
| feet and slouched along instead of walking
| But once in while he would walk into the
schoor0om wearing clean paper collar.
Then he would hold his head up straight,
and lift his feet when he walked, and act so
differently that his teacher used to wish that
she could afford to buy him whole suit; it
would apparently have made him gentle
man.
There was a great social difference be-
| tween the two boys referred to, who were
| the sons of a successful professional man,
| and this poor boy, the son of farm helper
| who lived in tumble-down house near a
| swamp; but there was no difference in their
| appearance. All three slOuched along when
| they walked, seemed to comb their hair with
| their fingers, and had forgotten to use a
| sh0e-brush. A new garment even so small
| as collar worked a marvellous change, and
| a new pair Of blue overallS worked trans
| formation. just notice how differently. you
| feel inside when your clothes are all in
| ORDER brushed and free from spots, and then
| watch how you feel when there are buttons
off, rips to be seen, and spots that stare right
| at you. You will find it much easier to be
| good when you feel that you look like re-
| spectacle member Of society. That being
| the case, it is not worth while to learn, not
| only how to be careful, but how to repair
small tears, sew on buttons. and remove
| spots and even if you always live at nome,
you will relieve a busy mother OF much
care, and that is always many. Nny' see
now a young man walking into an Office
with an overc0at on his arm, announcing
with much Impotence, "One dollar and
quarter out"
"Why?"
"Paid tailor one dollar and twenty five
cents for sewing on five buttons, Mcther
would have done it in ten minutes.
And mothers boy might have done 1t Tor
himself If he had only learned to use needle,
| or would try to learn now"
A surprised look came over his lace anu
| after minutes though he said, "TbaCs So