The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1899-08-03
Written for The Prison Mirror.
EditOr-PRISON MIRROR.

EditOr-PRISON MIRROR.
You have noticed the "hail-fellow
well-met" tone assumed in rural jour
nalism in the local columns. Fol
example, as Editor Gates of Dakota in
the early days might have put it, "Hey
there, Snortey! Got a new patch on
your pants! Let the good work go on!
On the contrary the metropolitan scribe
in refined, impersonal way, delicately
compliments the management on its
enterprise, frugality and economy
which is much less Earring to your
aesthetic taste, and less embarrassing
to the victim, who must needs wear
the patch and is propably not proud of
his nickname.
But speaking of patches: from very
far down East, at the enterprising and
and irrepressible age of ten, 1 spent a
summer with my mother, visiting an
uncle in st. Paul. That was in eighteen
- but no. If 1 gave the year you
would find my ago, and am now
clinging to every delusion that will aid
me to imagine myself still young, the
more so as the current years represent
gap, desert spot of my life which
must needs be counted and then for
gotten if possible, or hid in dark and
dusty corner of memory.
1 enjoyed myself as boy of ten can,
and after running the colts in the pas.
ture and throwing the long, stately,
single file of geese into disorderly con-
fusion by noisily charging them armed
with "nigger shooter" and craftily
and laborously stealing a few wild
plums which turned out to be regarded
as public property, made discovery.
There was a very long steep bank at
the side of the house, facing the river.
The summer had been dry and the
grass was long since dead. 1 found by
sitting down at the top of the bank
and getting started, would slide swift
ly to the bottom. 1 did so. Here was
July tobogganing. 1 did it again.
When I wore off the grass in one place
l moved little to one side. Oh, the
useful energy wasted in climbing that
bank. At night l announced to mother
that some holes had come in my pants.
yes, she had noticed it. L might put
on another pair in the morning and she
would patch those. Next noon l asked
for another change of pants and got it.
And that night 1 demanded whole
pants as natural right. And when,
finally, the supply was not kept up to
the demand, l remember was naugh-
ty, and said some very mean thing, and
cried, and "went on"
Now 1 like to imagine that among
thousand others, this is one of the
things l am being punished for at
present. Don't you remember when
we were boys, how the spirit rebelled
and revenge made the heart sore and
the mind to brood, when we were un-
justly corrected? But when we got
licking, we know we deserved and had
literally earned, it wasn't so bad after
all. And so now, three years seems
terribly severe for that two dollars and
half, although it was a hold up; and
two years for those old clothes, which
we might have had any way, if we had
asked for them properly; and two years
and half for not knowing what some
one else may have been doing, "when
as prudent man we might have
known"
But when we 60 thoughtfully back
over our lives and remember all the
mean things, and unkind, cruel things,
yes, and dishonest things, we have
done, and those that we have left un-
done, the wasted opportunities, the
misapplied advantages, the criminal
laziness, and shiftlessness, and neglect,
then punishment doesn't seem so very
cruel. There seems to be a good deal
of unconscious justice in it, and there
are moments even when we imagine we
deserve every bit we are getting, and
we have sort of grim hope that it is
doing us some good. Let us try it
oftener. Let us put our minds in that
frame for a while and see how much
easier it is to bear. JOHN DEAN,