Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-16
WHEN SCHOOL OPENS

Judging from the general drift OF talk
| that I overhear among my young ones,
| observed the looking man with
| the two-and-a-half chins and the houseful
/ OF children. 81 gather that all OF EN-, the
boys included. are glad that school is about
to reopen.
We'll, I'm glad that they are glad. But.
all the same, I can't quite get over the
feeling that It's kind o. queer and unnatu-
raj for children to want to return to school
after the long vacation-particularly boys.
Its not so queer about the girls-even
when / was tyke. remember. the little
pig-tailed girls, as we'll as the older ones.
were always ready and eager for the re-
opening Of school. But the boys of that
time? Not much!
II used to begin to get miserable about
the middle of August thinking Of the In
evitable and noto-to- be-postponed reopening
of school early in September. 1t gave me
neurasthenia OF the neck just to think
about the thing. The mere thought OF IT
cast a dark shadow on the flag end Of the
long summer vacation.
IT usually spend most Of the tail-end or
the vacation trying to dope out some scheme
whereby might be able to duck the neces-
sity of going to school at all any more
My schemes were all nebulous and vague,
but ran over them all in desperate ell
fort to quit the school business for gooo
and all.
II thought, for example, OF becoming
cutlass-eating pirate on the sanguinary
Spanish main. There being no 1easiple
method whereby I could pull this plan OH,
1 next began to figure on the chances OF
my becoming a renowned Indian fighter be-
fore the next fall of snow, with the accom-
panying likelihood of my being able to res
cue the beautiful daughter of millionaire
from the red fiends, OF marrying her i'm
mediately afterward. and of settling down
to life of ease and opulence on 5o,ooO-
acre ranch. felt reasonably certain that
they wouldn't have the gall to ask re-
nowned Indian fighter to go back to school,
after the long summer vacation. even II
he were still Of the school age, after he
done all Of those stunts and caused fifteen
or twenty thousand Of the remorseless
copper-hued devils to bite the dust
mo way Of getting by with this plan
presented itself, either. and then I'd fall to
wondering II I couldn't snag out job as
a brakeman on the railroad, with the
chance to swing a red lantern in the mid
die OF the night neg3e9ted. however. 70
! take the fact into consideration that was
| only about four feet high at the time. and
| that other views as to my career were en-
tertained at home.
''In fact, in order to get out of the mis-
cry of having to go back to school with
| the reopening of the term, I used to al
ways almost burst puckering string in
| my endeavors to find some kind of job
! any old kind Of a job-but my efforts in
| this direction weren't appreciated at home.
Il was yanked away from several jobs
| that I'd landed after herculean efforts. and
forced to return to school.
x may add. by way of an aside. that I've
had all the work | wanted since that time,
and that. at the present stage of it, I can
| hardly credit the indubittable and extraord-
| mary fact that there actually was period
| in my life when 1 honest and truly han
| kered for work.
las the day for the reopening of school
| drew nigh I can recall how everything
| seemed to go to the bow-wows.
Even my yaller dog appeared to have a
| premonition of the coming evil and sulked
| and blfnked under the front porch. and re-
| fused to be comforted even when 1 cor
rallied the cat for him to bark at
| Nothing on the table seemed to taste
| worth eating. and the old swimmin' hole In
| the crfck, in the cool depths of which
| had surreptitiously passed most OF the day
| light hours of summer, seemed to have a
| surface for the neglect which I would be
| compelled to show toward 1T with the re-
| opening of the little red school.
| about three days before the hateful day
| my mother would ride herd on me- and
| make me practice getting my shoes on-oi
| course I'd go barefoot all during the sum-
| mer vacation. She wanted to be dead sure
| that on the morning of the school reopen
| ing I would spring that Lean t-get-my-
| shoes-on' gag on her.
| My shoes were always about three sizes
| too small for me at the wind-up of the
| vacation, due to the fact-which the grown
| folks never by any chance took into con
| sideraton-that I'd had three months ex
| ira growth, and that the soles of my fee
| had been punctured by pieces of broker
| bottles. tin cans, splinters, prickly weeds
| snags. sharp rocks and so on, ever since
| the first barefoot day
| But L had to get the shoes on. alice
| samee, no matter how much too small they
| were.
THE miserable day would dawn. ant
when I'd awaken upon that morning al
| of the brisk, whey sunshine of autumn
| couldn't wipe the dreariness off my spirit
nor eradicate the hopeless it's-all-over-noV
| feeling
And when I'd start Off on the trudge t.
school. and my yaller dog would follow m,
| suspiciously for about the width of va
cant lot, and then he'd cock hts head t,
one side and look me over with an air O.
| mingled doubt and derision. not to say con
tempt, and he'd never be wholly the sam,
In his manner toward me from that tim.
| on until the beginning OF the next vacation
when he'd gradually warm up to me again
Different times, different ways But
somehow or another. 1 can't entirely dodg,
| the feeling that it's kind o. peculiar. for {
| boy to be ready to go back to school afte.
the summer vacation. It doesn't seem rea
| boy-ey to me, and that's a fact"
|