The morning call., 1893-06-25


adjusted it accurately under the rim of
his plate and pushed back his chair from
the breakfast table. "However earnestly
one may try, it does not seem possible
really to reach the heart of boy"
His maiden sister, Miss Simplex, shifted,
half scornfuliy, from behind the coffee urn.
u am not certain" she said severely.
THAT l am prepared to believe in the ex-
istence Of such thing as boys heart. /
dare say the little animals have some sort
Of muscular organ that pumps blood
through their bodies. l know that they
have stomachs. and Jared certainly has
brains. such as they are, but am pretty
sure boys do not possess hearts 10 any
spiritual sense of that word. At all events
have never been able to find them. Jared
has none, that is certain"
Miss Simplex was collecting the glass
and china, which always received her per-
Sonal attention, meditating meantime in 10
hopeful frame of mind on the probab bic
future of her young nephew, who had
been her particular charge and trial ever
since the time, eight years before, when
his pretty, delicate young mother had
gathered the three-year-old fodder to her
heart. kissed him for the last time on
earth and charged him with her dying
breath to be good boy and do as Aunt
Sarah babe him.
She had promised that young mother to
be good to her boy, and according TO her
llght she had done her best to keep that
promise. Was she not at this very
moment half distraught with anxiety over
the young animal, who had taken himself
she knew not where from the breakfast
table, and would probably not return until
night =? The whole town could hear testi-
mony to her devotion TO Jared. There was
Tot his equal in the country for getting
into scrapes and tearing his clothes, but
no one ever saw him leave the house with
dirty face or torn jacket or broken shoes.
lie came back nearly every day with all
these, but no one could help that.
just now Jared was home from school
IN hopeless disgrace. at seems mpos-
sibe to make any impression upon him. !"
the principal wrote, land perhaps it will
be as we'll to leave him to his own desires
tor a WHILE"
His particular offense this time had been
cutting up the leather covers of his gram
mar and making therefrom an elaborate
pen wiper-holder, soaking and embossing
the leather very cleverly with the aid of
his penknife and key. WheD punished
he had taken the chastisement suleDly,
and wholly refused to admit that be was
sorry for his wanton destruction of the
book. The inside's just as good" he
said, AN don't want the old thing, any,
.
otfrnses. He had no sense OF order or
niceness of arrangement" Miss Simplex
said. He would destroy anything for the
sake oil making some prepoSterous, ugly
thing thereof There was constant
struggle between the two over the harbar-
GUS truck Jared would bring home to clut-
ter up the little white room set apart for
him in the house, and which Miss Simplex
eDdeavored to maintain in the exquisite
neRtness OF her own maiden apartment.
Queer stones, moses. weeds of every de-
scrlption, great boughs OF trees, even, once,
rattlesnake's skin, were some of the
things the boy persisted in finding more
desirable ornaments than those with which
Miss Simplex had adorned his room.
But the most repulsive feature of
Jared's character, as Miss Simplex de-
clared, as his anxious father noted and
the principal regrett was that he seemed
incapable Of loving any one. Silent, almost
morose, he seemed entirely 10 lack the
usual impulse OF childhood to please. He
seems to care more Tor a common dog
than for his own kind" was one of his
aunts worried indictments against him,
and, fearful lest so unnatural tendency
should be fostered. his father had required
Jared to part with this brokeD-tailed mon
grei cur that for nearly a year had been
his most constant companion. wandering
WITH him in his long solitary woods
tramps, and lying beside him for hours
on the hillsides in the sun, where he loved
to spend his time, dreaming the long,
long thoughts of youth.
Poor little Jared! He had had an un-
happy time al the evening meal until at
last, overcome with the sense of disap-
prevail with which the two "grownups"
regarded him. he had fled from the ruoD,
Selling his little hat as he ran, and rushed
for refuge 10 a fayorite haunt of his be-
side little stream up in the hills.
10 FaIIo
very moment when his anxious father and
aunt were so doubtfully discussing his
future. staring with big round eyes into
the swollen stream, thinking his boys
thoughts as only boy can when the iron
of this worlds bitterness enters into his
boyish soul. There is no more pitiful
sight in this whole pitiful uniye .se than
boy in trouble. Your little girl, thanks to
mammals careful training, aunte's devo-
u0n and grandma's loving oversight. rarely
has chance TO get into trouble. Her
little life Is carefully planned for her, her
little thoughts carefully mapped out. her
little footsteps sedul0usy guided into easy,
correct and conventional ways. and she
grows up into Il nice little parrot, or
clever. correctly arranged finished article,
while her brother is being knocked about
In compleXty Of circumstances, getting
licked into shape by The efficient and ready
tongue of Life as He Finds 1t.
But the licking process is hard. and the
boy suffers under it. Who can tell the
tormenting thoughts teeming under the
shocky hair-the doubts and wonder
ments of the bewildered boy-sou, the
wild rebellion of the tough little heart
under the shabby jacket? He fights his
mental and spiritual battles alone for the
most part, for few understand the little
animals-they're only boys. you know,
and do not need the fostering care the
little girls must have. Only the mother
usually gets down TO the little warm,
loving. yearning. wondering heart. and
she often. all TOO soon, lets il go out alone
to seek and Stay its giants or be slain by
them.
Down in the damp grass, under a
tangle of swamp-w willow. Jared lay and
thought. Was it really true that he was
hardened sinner, az Aunt Sarah said?
He was sure he loved the God who had
made the blue sky and the green earth;
at all events he loved the earth and the
sky. What had be done that he should
repent OF and call himself lost? he had
knocked Tommy Gray down last term
for calling him a liar when he had only
told him the truth about his having seen
a rattlesnake change his skin. but he had
told Tommy he was sorry. and had even
gwen him, as a peaee-0fferlng the skin
that he had picked up and treasured.
Surely God wasn't laying that up against
him.
little red squirrel hoped across the
open and sat on his hind legs a moment,
studying Jared, then suddenly whsked
around and disappeared in a hole. The
little chap wondered vaguely If his sins
troubled him. Then he put his head down
on his arms and groaned. Il suppose I'm