The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1909-09-23
LLI< WOMAN'S
fessgW COLUMN
4 ~
=. \ A Department for
N (o> Women and the
y y ~ sSA) Household
CHILDREN OF A LARGER GROWTH
We Still Practice Some OF the Mean
Tricks of Childhood on Larger
Scale-Jealousy Of Others Success.

Tricks of Childhood on Larger
ScaIe-JeaIousy of Others Success.
We're not very grown up, most of
us-mere school children of larger
growth. In the little red brick
schoolhouse in the hollow, we used
to grow very angry and nudge each
other significantly, if Teacher
was especially kind to ally of our
number. HIM" whispered Johnnie
Jones to Susie Smith, brown-eyed
Susie with the long yellow pigtails,
guess Teacher wouldn't be so nice
to Sam White if she knowed what we
know about him. Would she?" And
Susie shakes her yellow head vigor-
ously. Outside the schoolhouse
gates, a grown-up Sam White earns
a special mark of favor from the
community Him." shifts John Jones.
Sr. to Mrs. Susie Smith Green, I've
heard some very funny tales about
that Sam White. Wouldn't stand so
high in the community if they were
known, l reckon"
And do you remember that spec
tacled, stoop-shouldered boy who al
ways had his lessons perfect and who
made splendid recitations just after
we'd made wretched failures of our
selves? How we hated him and VOW
ed we'd punch him after school, but
we were very INSCRIPTIONS in pill
fering his neatly worked-out prob
lens and his Latin prose exercises
for our own personal gain. And
when we didn't have favor to ask
of him, we called him "Goody-goody"
and other endearing terms behind
his back Outside the school house
gates, we employ the same tactics,
some of us, toward the chap who has
plugged along steadily while we
danced, and whose diligence has sud-
denly been rewarded. We get what
we can out of him and we call him
names behind his back. Teachers
pet we cry tauntingly
Yes, and some of us still like to
pull the long braids of the girl ahead
of us, and to brush spotess sleeves
in black inkwells, and to brand Il
man or woman with a printed sign,
slyly pinned to his or her back and
to play penny-ante with other pep
pies feeling when Teacher isn't
looking. And we forget ourselves
completely if Teacher leaves the
room on an errand and we sulk and
grow peevish and spiteful if we are
caught and the ruler is briskly APP
piled. And surreptitious bites of
stolen sweets behind convenient desk
covers are still delightful Now that
we are men and women we pride OUR
selves that we have put away child
ish things but we have not. We may
have laid aside the graces and the
frolics and the high spirits and I'M
bounded optimism of childhood, but
the peevishness and the babyish
quarrels, and the bullying nature,
and this jealous spirit clings alike al
thirteen and thirty-one. Some of us
never outgrow the bully habit. Some
of us sulk and whine if another man
is promoted over our heads. Some
of us dance through life, prompted
when we must recite, by the loathcd
and esteemed specialized one behind
us. Some of us are too serious and
some OF us too gay and we are all
more or less childish If we were
the Peter Pan kind, Teacher
wouldn't need to scold but the hap
Ply, go-lucky attitude of Peter is not
the species of childishness we keep
up until long after our hair is gray.
VIII we never grow IN?