Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1894-07-19
THE HEART OF A BOY.


ssIt does not really seem possible"
sighed Mr. Simplex, as he folded his
napkin, adjusted it accurately under
the rim of his plate, and pushed back
his chair from the breakfast table.
ssHowever earnestly one may try, it
does not seem possible really to reach
the heart Of boy"
His maiden sister, Miss Simplex,
shifted, half scornfully, from behind
the coffee urn.
81 am not certain" she said severe
lv, ''that am pre- pared to believe in
the existence of such thing as
boys heart. / dare say the little ami
mails have some sort OF a muscular
organ that pumps blood through their
bodies. / know that they have
stomachs, and Jared certainly has
brains, such as they are, but L am
pretty sure boys do not possess hearts
in 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 re-
ceived her personal attention, medi-
tating meantime in no hopeful frame
of mind on the probable 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 ear-old fodder to
her heart, kissed him for the last
time on earth, and charged HIM with
her dying breath to be a good boy
and do as Aunt Sarah babe him.
Just now Jared was home from
school in hopeless disgrace. ut
seems impossible to make any i'm
preston upon him. the principal
wrote, ''and perhaps it will be as well
to leave him to his own desires for
while"
His particular oifense this time had
been cutting up the leather covers of
his grammar and making therefrom
an elaborate pen wiper holder, soak
ing and enclosing the leather very
cleverly with the aid of his penlnife
and key. When punished he had
taken the chastisement sullenly, and
wholly refused to admit that he was
sorry for his wanton destruction of
the book. THE insde's just as
good" he said, IAN don't want the
old thing, anyway
But the most repulsive feature of
Jared's character, as Miss Simplex de-
h. 60 nnfnI
and the principal regretted was that
he seemed incapable of loving anyone.
Silent, almost morose, he seemed en-
tirely to lack the usual impulse of
childhood to please. He seems to
care more for a common dog than for
his own kind" was one of his aunt's
worried indictments against him, and,
fearful lest so unnatural tendency
should be foStered, his father had re-
quired Jared to part with the broken
tailed mongrel cur that for nearly a
year had been his most constant com
panion, 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
unhappy time at the morning meal,
until at last. overcome with the sense
of disapproval with which the two
''gro wnupS" regarded him, he had
fed from the room, selling hat as he
ran, and rushed for refuge to favor
tie haunt of his beside little stream
up in the hills.
Poor little fellow! There he sat, at
he 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.
Who can tell the tormenting
thoughts teeming under the shocl<y
hair-the doubts and wonderments of
the bewildered boy soul, and the will d
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 animal-they're only boys,
you know, and do not need the foster
ing care the little girls must have.
Only the mother usually gets down tc
the little, warm, loving, yearning,
wondering heart, and she often, al
too soon, lets it go out alone to seek
and Stay its giants or be slain by them
Down in the damp grass, under &
tangle of swamp willow, Jared lay
and thought. Was it really true that
he was a hardened sinner as Aun
Sarah said? He was sure he loved the
God who made the blue sky and tn,
green earth; at all events he loved the
earth and the sky. What had he don,
that he should repent of and call him
self lost? He had knocked Tomm,
Gray down last term for calling HIM
liar, when he had only told him TIL,
truth about his having seen a rattle
snake change his skin, but he had tolC
Tommy he was sorry, and had ever
given to him, as peace offering, tn,
skin that he had picked up and treas
ured. Surely God wasn't laying tina
up against him.