Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-11-13
ON MAKING NOISE.
Word to Boys Telling Them When
They Should Keep Quiet.

OF course you must take it. Ger
tainly you ought to make a great deal,
says Mary S. McCobb in Harper's
Young People. Who would wish "a
soaring, human boy'' to creep about on
| tiptoe and talk under his breath? I
for one would not give ''tuppence'' for
a boy who could not shout loud enough
! to make me tremble lest the roof
! should fall.
But are there not occasions when. if
unselfish, boy would take thought
| for othersP Suppose a headache is
| going on in the next room, might one
not remember that heavy boots squeak
and clatter and that loud voice
makes pain unbearable? When there
| is illness in the house ''the word for
your guidance is mum, mum, mum!'
There are BOYS whose lot is cast in a
boarding house, one of the draw backs
| to which is that courtesy makes it but
! fair to the other boarders that each
person should go through the halls and
down the stairs less like a whirlwind
than some of us would like.
And how about ones conduct during
school hours? Probably the head
master will take care of himself and
you when in the schoolroom. But how
about the classroom where a young
lady teaches? Very often she is new
at the business. Possibly she does not
know everything about boys. You
may have seen such teacher.
Now any one with half brain
even an idiot-has wit enough to see
how he may disturb that new teacher.
1t is absurdly easy to scrape ones feet
| on the floor 1t takes but little skill
to cluck in ones throat so deity that
it is hard to tell where the noise comes
from. To talk half aloud to the next
boy is neither witty nor wise. If you
were to meet Your teacher on the
street YOU would take off your hat in
twinkling. You would step out into
| the mud if the sidewalk were too par
row for two. Why should you lay
aside your chiyalrous courtesy because
she happens to teach you geometry or
,, Latin? You would deal sharply with
any lad who undertook to annoy your
happen that you yourself worry a lady
with unseemly noise, as if you were
boor and not a gentleman?
What OF noise in public assembly?
Can anything be more ilI-bred than to
giggie and whisper when the business
OF the evening is to hear music or a
lecture? 1t is by no means boys alone,
nor girls either. for that matter, who
| sometimes disturb others in this
fashion.
/ remember a whole audience being
once so annoyed by aumber of per-
sons laughing and talking while play
was going on that a general burst of
Kissing made the displeasure known.
Don't you think those chatterlng indl-
vidua!s must have wished the ground
| would open and swallow them? Aud
the modification served them right.
And if it is rude to thoughtlessly
make noise in a public hall how
much worse is it when the building is
church? And yet there are young
folks who, coming into pew. party
OF them together. behave so irrever-
emily that one almost thinks them
parcel OHIO, we won't Insult the
heather. who at least bow before their
Idols shrineS awe-stricken.
One wonders what sort of parents
permit their children to stray from one
church 10 another with no older person
as guardian. But since there are
boys and girls who have this undesir-
able liberty might they not do we'll to
remember the words: The Lord is
IN his holy temple; let all the earth
keep silence before him"