The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1903-07-31

There are more reasons for the
melancholy days than appear on the
face of them. Last June Arthur grad
uated from the local high school. He
was dressed in new SIS suit and
the barber had put starch on his race
for the first time. That night the
Grafton with blue ribbon thrills
around it was put away in the escrl-
toire in Arthur's room, and the next
morning, bright and rather early, Art
went out prepared to halter and tame
the wide, wide world.
He had read Robert Burdette's
Rise and Fall of the Mustache," and
he knew that power and conquest
slumbered at his very feet, waiting
only the determined prod in the ribs
to awaken it to yeoman service. For
months he had been posting up on
Napoleon, Alexander and ]. Pierpont
Morgan, and he knew it was cinch-
Thus, or so, as we said be-
fore, our young hero went out into
the maddening mart with his halter,
prepared to get Stranglehold and an
overdraw check on this mundane
spheroid. BY noon he had succeeded
in working up lively appetite and
from mere force of habit, turned to
the ancestral board for sustenance.
AS he stretched his long legs under
fathers table, kicked the family cat
and tucked the haberdashery inside
his board collar, panied expression
of wonderment fitted across fathers
face at sight of the empty halter
dangling from Arthur's belt.
But he asked grace with emphasis
on the 1--WE thank thee. o Lord, for
this sustenance," and Arthur's moth
err helped her BonapaFte to more pie.
During the torrid months Arthur
continued to talk about tying the
globe to the manger and feeding it
sawdust, but owing to poor success
between meals, he seldom mentioned
the matter when asking for a second
helping of rice pudding.
One hot August day Art awakened
to the fact that pa was worried about
something. He seemed to be off his
feed, asked grace in mechanical
manner as though he didn't believe
much in it, anyhow, was short in his
answers and had a strained way of
looking at him that suggested he did
not fully realize the strenuous cam
paisn in which his son and heir was
radically engaged. This happened
again and again. Every time Arthur
rode up to the banquet leading an
empty halter, every time he asked
for more strawberries, or was late to
breakfast six times a week, father
grew cold and reserved, while a re-
proachful and lowering something
seemed ever near, a harbinger of
stormy weather and less pie.
In the meantime mother continued
to fortify Arthur against the world
with sundry squares of pie and
white lies to pa about what time he
got in the night before. All this was
preparing Art to eventually throw his
lasso round the waist line of Madam
Earth and to rise triumphant in the
historical school books of the next
generation. While the laurel wreath
of fame was being worked over for
Artie by mother, pa was down at the
office swearing at the Office force md
thinking of the melancholy days to
come.
The first frost was on the morning
of the day after the coal man pre-
sented his bill and the tailor where
Arthur had his fancy vests lsade,
suggested to pa to pay up. 1t was a
bad day, anyhow, for father had eaten
some lobster salad and sinkers the
night before and carried his umbrella
all the way down town to get caught
in heat wave as dry as gentleman
from Kentucky in an Iowa prohibit
ton district. By the time he reached
home for dinner he was a Crouch for
your whiskers. Brave man and strong
that pa was, he could not be expected
to long withstand such a strain.
And the melancholy days came in
with a vengeance! Pa met Arthur
with pas own choice of weapons.
There was a prolonged seance in the
woodshed. Reporters were barred. All
we know about 1t is that next day,
before breakfast which did not
come off until an hour after he was
up. Arthur tearfully put away what
was left of his halter strap, ate
light repast of oatmeal off the top OF
a cornucopia in the dining room. and
was of like a gun you didn't know
was loaded. That same day he got
job engineering the horse power of
a grocer's delivery wagon, and the
world is still unhaltered.
|
world on a diet of applesauce.
SSS
| There's many a slip