Devils Lake weekly world. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1911-1914, 1911-09-01

terday's World that though insianif
cant in itself could have unfolded &
story rare in human interest and per
sonal recollections for some young
man. 1t told of the discovery on the
part of the man who was giving the
rooms in the local schools complete
renovating of the same initials on the
desks from the first grade room to the
high school. What a history those in
itials must represent; what boyhood
trials and trihulations; joys and dis
coverieS. Is there a business man.
gray haired. perhaps, and worried who
does not as the early signs of autumn
appear allow himself few moments in
thoughtful contemplation of the days
when he as a boisterous youngster grab
bed his books from the table. tucked
his lunch box under his arm. kissed his
dear old mother a hasty peek and start
ed for the old school house,
1t requires no stretch of the mag
nation to picture the youngster whose
initials We're found on the local desk
in his first grade with starched white
dress and perhaps curls that the older
boys delighted to pull. We doubt not
but what his initials on that desk were
marked laboriouslv with pencil and
then perhaps carefully gone over with
a pin so that the impression might be
the more lasting. Let us take it for
granted that he was "'motel'' to the
third the next year, where perhaps he
borrowed the knife of his seatmate and
together they worked on the letters
that stood for his name. By the next
year he must surely have owned
knife of his own and then what whole
sale whiting. A hole must be cut
through the top of the desk into the
mysterious recesses beneath, ruler
must be nicked and the side of the
seat must be artistically whitfield and
then daubed with ink. 1t was probab-
ly not until the renovator discovered
the desk that was occupied during the
eighth grade that beside the manly in
itials of the boy whose course he had
followed from the first room, were
found the smaller but more carefully
executed initials of someone else. Per-
haps there We're traces, and we doubt
not but what there were, of the elimi-
nation Of other initials before those
finally found beside his at the end Of
the year were carved. The High School
sculpture then became matter OF
course, robbed by that time of the
fear Of "teacher'' or of the matchless
inspiration that comes with the posses
sion of the first knife.
The owner of those initials has un-
doubtedly left his native town, he may
now be in pursuit Of higher education
at one of our leading Universities,
where he has found softer material up
on which to engrave his initials than
the hard wood of the school house desk,
he may be in business literally "carv-
ing out name for himself,' or he
may be one Of those who cut off in
his youth leaves indelibly stamped on
the hearts Of those he left behind his
boyhood escapades.
The school desk does not contain evil
dence of wanton destruction or vandal
ism but rather the desire of personal as
sertion that should be in the compost
ton Of every manly boy. Let US hope
that the boy whose self-assertiveness
was SO prominent in the local school
may now be making a reputation that
will leave his initials long remember
ed by his friends and business asso-
GATES n