The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1903-04-04

Inever see one II these fellows swell
ing around with their petty larceny
pride that I don't think Of a little exs
perience of mine when I was a boy. An
old fellow caught me lifting a water
melon In his patch q afternoon, and
instead Of cutting me and letting me 80,
as 1 had expected II 1 got caught. he
led me home by the a to my ma and
told her what 1 had been up to.
Your grandma had been raised on the
old fashioned plan, and she had never
heard of these n~ewfangled theories OF
reasoning gently with a child TIL its
under lip begins to stick out and its
eyes to I'LL with tears as 1t sees the er-
ror of its ways. She fetched the tears
all right, but she did 1t with q trunk
strap or a slipper. And your grandma
was a pretty substantial woman. Moth
ing Of the tootsy wootsy about her
foot and nothing of the airy fairy trife
about her slipper. When she was
through / knew that I'd been Kicked
polished right OF to a point-and then
she sent me to my o and told me
not to poke my nos out Of 1t till l
could recite the Ten Commandments
and the Sunday school lesson by heart
There was a whole chapter Of it. and
an Old Testament chapter at that, but
1 laid right into it because I knew
ma, and supper was only two hours OF.
1 can repeat that chapter still, forward
and backward, without missing a word
&1--f,~ - ao+1h ~,u hroofh
Every now and then old Doc Hoover
used to come into the Sunday school
room and scare the scholars into fits
by going around from class to class
and asking questions. That next SUM-
day, for the first time, / was glad to
see him happen In, and I didn't try to
escape attention when he worked
around to our class. For ten minutes
I'd been busting for him to ask me to
recite a verse Of the lesson, and when
he did 1 simply cut loose and recited
the whole chapter and threw In the
Ten Commandments for good measure.
1t sort of dazed the Doc, because be
had come to me for information about
the Old Testament before, and we'd
never got much beyond "And Ahab
begat Jahab," or words to that effect.
But when he got over the shock he
made me stand right up before the
whole school and do 1t again. Patted
me on the head and said ! was IAN
honor to my parents and an example to
my playmates."
1 had been looking down all the time,
feeling mighty proud and scared. but
at that l couldn't help glancing up to
see the other boys admire me. But the
first person my eye Lit on was your
grandma, standing in the back OF the
room, where she had stopped for a mo-
ment on her way up to church, and
glaring at me in a mighty unpleasant
way.
"Tell 'em, john" she said right out
loud before everybody.
There was N way to run, for the
elder had hold Of my hand, and there
was no place to hide. though I reckon
I could have crawled into a rat hole.
So, to gain time, I blurted out:
"Tell EN- what mamr
"Tell EN- how you come to have your
lesson so NICE"
I learned to hate notoriety right then
and there, but I knew there was no
switching her OF on to the weather
when she wanted to talk religion. So
I shut my eyes and let 1t come, though
1t caught on my palate ono or twice on
the way out.
Hooked a watermelon, nam"
There wasn't any need for further
particulars with that crowd, and they
simply howled. Ma led me up to our
pew, allowing that she'd tend to me
Monday for disgracing her in public
that way-and she did.
That was a twelve grain dose with
out any sugar coat, but 1t sweat more
cant and false pride out of my system
than I could get back into it for the
next twenty years. I learned right
there how to be humble, which Is a
heap more important than knowing
how to be proud. There are mighty
few men that need any lessons In that.