The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1901-07-19

with boy? | don't mean one of those
good boys you read of in Sunday school
books who lives like a saint all day
and says his prayers and retires like
gentleman at night but one of those
lusty growing" young American boys,
born with the jerks and spring in his
back, who chases the cat around and
ties strings to the dogs tail all morn
ing robs birds nests and rides the
filly all afternoon; howls away the
twilight hour because he has to wet his
feet and wash them Oh the towel be-
fore going to bed, and then spends the
night kickin', snortin', rolling out O.
bed, seein things and havin fits, and
yet sleeping through it all like a cub
in winter quarters, bull in a dope
shop, a bald headed deacon under
doctrinal sermon.
The weather is extremely warm,
even in Tennessee, and it was my mis-
fortune to tackle just such a kid last
week. Ordinarily, l can lie out of
such things but his mother, having
been suddenly called off, leaving this
colt and two-year pacing filly of
uncertain gait on our hands, it be-
came an act of christian charity on my
part to shoulder my share of the bur-
den. "The dear little fellow will be
50 proud to sleep with his uncle John, "
said his fond mother on departing,
and he does sleep so quietly and
sound-not bit of trouble.
Never having had boy, believed
all this.
1t was decided that The Angel was
to sleep with the two-year-old up
stairs. you see, DEAR, The Angel
said, "the little thing must have her
bottle every time she wakes, and the
soothing syrup when she is restless
She cries gerat deal and will natur-
ally miss her mother, and I will likely
be awake all night Now, the boy
will sleep like log and give you no
trouble. So be good boy yourself
and see how soundly you two can
sleep.
Now, The Angel is all right, but
what she doesn know about healthy
lad is plenty.
had to write that night, and had
my desk in my bedroom. SO l put
him to bed early. After much per-
suasion, which included lying prom
Use on my part that he should go with
me to the farm the next day. | got him
to wash his feet on my towel. Then
he proudly held them up to the light
for me to see. | let it go at that
thinking maybe the contrast of the
light was what made the bottom of
them look like maps of darkest Africa.
And ism t it remarkable what spurs a
growing boy has on his heels? Did
you ever try to undress one? | forgot
to say that this boy had chased a bat
around the room for an hour or so be-
fore l got him off to bed. His clothes
stuck to HIM like a mustard plaster. |
got everything unbuttoned and then
skinned him. He insisted, to my sur
prise, on saying his prayers not,
think, for hope of reward but for feal
of punishment and the dark. But he
promptly went to sleep on the word
"trespasses and us found | couldn'
wake him, yanked him in by the
nape of his night shirt and went tC
my work.
One of the strangest things about
boys is, that when they go to wiggle
around over the led in their sleep they
do it diagonally-I pulled him back tC
his place five times in the next hour.
Then I'd hear him scuffling and flop
ping about-always ending in a long
drawn, dreary and dismal sigh thai
would make his fortune in heavy vii
lain act, where the good, piOus but
down trodden and misunderstood lover
longs for his lady love-then he'd set
tie down to Hopping again. 1t would
end in his rounding up against the
footboard in the opposite corner, fla
on his back, every limb and arm point
ing to its cardinal point of the com
pass. his night shirt rolled up in {
comic wad under his neck, his husky
feet looking like scaly toads on tbs
white, clean sheet, and his tout en-
semble like young dead bullfrog float
ing on his back in the turbid waters o.
Kentucky horse pond.
If there is anything uglier in it
conspicuousness or more conspicuous
in its ugliness than boy in this atti
tude, have never seen it. / tried Il
waken him and get him back, but HI
only sighed one Of those long sighs
unlimbered and slept on.
was getting in the next hour
work pretty well when the most dread
full and startling thing happened
heard a choking gasping and mos
frightfully suffocating sound mingleC
with a 5Olorous wheeling: "Owoo-
oo-oo, Owee-we-we! O-wOw-