Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1898-07-14

plish anything, and heis half ashamed
Of himself at the time. Under such cir
cumstances profanity becomes an ap.
palling wickedness, even to the most
hardened ''rounder."
AS I sat behind those two boys and
listened to their noisy discussion of the
late orgies and their painful efforts to
impress us with their worldliness it oc-
CURED 10 me that it would be a good
idea to take, those two boys out and
have them photographed in their sum-
mer suits, with the fashy white felt
hats and rainbow cravats, and after
that let them talk for about 80 minutes
into photograph.
Twenty years from now, after they
have become seedy and hard-headed
married men, with growing children OF
! their own, it would give them cause for
reflection if they could take out these
| photographs and study them and then
listen to their own conversation in the
photograph. No doubt they would ex-
claim: what spectacular bladders we
must have been!"
The two boys on the train were fair
~ good types. l have seen the same
kind of young man in every small town.
Sometimes my sense of humanity
moves me to appeal to the young man.
feel as if ought to go up to him and
say: "My dear boy, don't be so desper-
ate. Don't think because you worry
your mother that you are really bad.
There are thousands of young men in
this country who wear their hats pulled
forward and their cigars pointed,up the
same as you have them, and they have
the same kind of toothpick shoes and
speckled neckties, and they use the cur
rent slang just as awkwardly as you do,
and are just as far behind on the-popu-
lar songs. Because you drank two
glasses of beer light before last and
then sang "A Hot Time in the Old Town
through the principal streets, that's no
sign that you are a person of any i'm
portance. Don't hold your shoulders
in that position when, you walk, and
please don't swagger. It's great ef-
fort for, you to be tough, and it annoys
other people,"
l hope that no one will take it that !
am trapping" the small town. l was
born and reared in a small town, and
nearly all Of my friends live in the small
towns. All that wish to do is to call
attention to one of the features OF town
life.,:
It may be remembered that two
weeks ago wrote something about the
girls in the small towns These girls,
as a rule, are lovely and we'll behaved:
OF course, there are few of the feath-
er-headed variety who want to .firt'
with every stranger who comes into
town, but most Of them are essential
ly all right, and the only fault that
I have to find with them is that some
times they endure the society of the
weird young men with the loud voices
and the hats over theireyes. It is rea-
sonable to suppose that the girls are
hard up for company and have TO take
the best they can get.
Fortunately for the public good, the
bad young man in the:small town usual
ly Gains down after a certain period.
Occasionally it is matrimony that takes
the kinks out of him, or it may be that
he simply outgrows his foolishness. I
should say that the trouble usually be-
gins when the boy. first gets out at
night. For this reason many parents
say that children should never be per-
mitted to run at large after nightfall.
When a boy becomes larger than his
father and is earning salary on his
own account, however, the parental
authority weakens. The boy begins to
carry pale cigars in his upper vest
pocket and then he learns to waltz, and
very soon he ceases to explain what is
keeping him out at night. The sense
of liberty intoxicates him. By constant
association with other callow young
people who are attempting to acquire
all the manly vices he picks up, in
and secondhand way, the
vocabulary and the lnannerism of the
fashy element in the city. He has a
sudden ambition to wear rakish and
sporty garments and talk slang. His
close friends encourage him, and he
comes to believe that he27is actually
wicked. For some reason he is intense
ly gratitied to know that he is wicked,
so he puts himself on exhibition at all
hours of the day and night, lest some
one should suspect him of being tame
and unsophisticated. Until he'recovers
from the delusions OF this ''Smart Alec
period there is no living with him. He
is not susceptible to argument. lie
knows more than all the colleges and
faculties put together r. -..
The two boys on the train were suf-
fering from "Smart Aleckism'' in it's
worst form. My heart bled for them.
They were too old to be spanked and
not old enough to be guided by the |