The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1904-11-17
Something About your pa Young
Man.

Something About your pa Young
Man.
| Your pa was down town this morning
complaining about his old trouble that
crick in his back, that he tells you he
got loading hay<one hot day in Huron
county, Ohio, "before the army" The
'old trouble as you will remember
| brothers your pa a good deal and your
ma thinks that his father must have
been a pretty hard hearted man to let
him work so hard when he was boy.
| Your pa likes to have you and your ma
think that when he was a boy he did
nothing but work and go to prayer
meeting and go around doing noble
deeds out of the third reader, but
number of the boys of the Eleventh
Kansas, who knew your pa in the sixties
are prepared to do lot Of forgetting
for him whenever he asks it. The truth
about your pas "old trouble is that he
was down at Eft. Leavenworth just after
the close of the war and after filling up
on laughing water at saloon he got in
fight with the bartender and was
kicked out of the saloon and slept in
the alley all night. That was his last
whizz. He took an invoice of his stock
and found that he had some of the most
valuable experience that a man can
acquire and he Strengthened up and
came out here and grew up with the
country. Your ma met him at a basket
meeting and she thought he was an ex-
tremely pious young man and they
made a go of it.
So Bub when you think that by
breathing on your coat sleeve to kill
the whiskey, you can fool your pa, you
are wrong. Your pa in his day ate
three car loads Of Gardiner seeds and
cloves and used listerine by the barrel.
Also he knew which was the creaky
step on the stairs in his fathers house
and used to avoid it coming in at night
just as you do now and he knows just
what you are doing. And more than
that your pa speaks from the bitterest
kind of experience when he pleads with
you to quit. 1t is no goody goody talk
of a mutton-headed old deacon that he
is giving you; it has taken him a year
to get his courage up to talk to you and
every word he speaks is boiled down
out of an agony of bitter memories. He
knows where boys that start as you are
starting end if they don't turn back.
Your pa turned back; he recollects the
careers of the Green boys who are di-
vided between the penitentiary, the
poor house and the southwest corner Of
hell; he recalls the Winklers-one dead,
one a porter in saloon in Peoria, one
crazy; and he looks at you and il seems
to him that he must take you in his
arms as he did when you were little
child in the prairie fire and run to
safety with you. And when he talks to
you in his bashful, halting speech you
just sit there and grin, and cut his heart
to it's core for he knows you do not
understand.
It's rather up to you Bub; in the next
few months you will have to decide
whether you are going to hell or not.
OF course the "vilest sinner may re-
turn" at any point along the road, but
to what? To shattered health, to
mothers heart broken in her grave, to
wife damned for all eternity by your
thoughtless brutality and to children
who are always afraid to look up the
alley when they see a group of boys for
fear they may be teasing you-you
drunk and dirty lying in the stable filth.
To that you will return with your
strength spent and your sporty friends
lgone to the devil before you and your
4 chance in life frittered away.
just sit down and figure it out, Bub;
of course there are a lot of good fellows
on the road to hell; you will have a
good time going but you'll be long
time there. You'll dance and play cards
and chase out nights and soak your soul
in the essence Of dom -give-a-dam
ness and you'll wonder as you go up in
the balloon what fun there is in walking
| through this sober old earth. Friends
what are they? the love of humanity
what is it? thoughtfulness to those
about you? gentility? what are these
things Letteroll-letteroll! But as you
drop out of the balloon the earth will
look like serious piece of landscape.
When you are old the beer you have
swilled will choke your throat, the wo-
linen you have flirted with will hang
round your feet and make you stumble,
tall the nights you have wasted in poker
will dim your eyes. And the garden of
the days that are gone within you
should have planted kindness and con-
sideration and thoughtfulness and man
Fly courage to do right, will be grown up
to weeds, that will blossom in your
patches and in your rags and in your
twisted, gnarled face that no one loves.
Go it Bub; don't stop for your pas
sake. You know it all. Your pa is
merely an old fogy. Tell him to go
back and sit down. But when you were
a little boy, very little boy, with soft
hair and round body your pa used to
take you in his arms and rub his
beard Ibis rough, stubby, three-days
beard, against you and pray that God
would keep you from the path you are
now going in.
And so the sins of the father Bub-
but we won't talk of that.
For Oklahoma real estate write or call
on 6. B. Jordan, Enid, O. II.
Mixed Qualities.
! Pahson-Brudder Bakers got some