Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-06-17

~ Q your boy is out of school and
nothing will do but he must go to
the Big City and be a cartoonist.
He is clever. you say. and so say his
teachers, and he really can draw such
funny pictures of people that every one
in town laughs over them, and he
doesn't take any interest in anything
on earth but pencils paper-and ideas.
Shall you let him go? Where? When?
Ought you to sell your home and go
with him to take care of him? Is It
right to let him go alone among stran
gers? What if he should fall? Who's
going to take care of him if he should
be i'll? How is he going to know what
to say to the editors when he does
see them?
Dear me, what a mother you are, to
be sure; what a regular mother from
the very first letter of your name to
the very last drop of ink at the end
of your signature!
Let him! Why. what else can you
do but let him? He isn't yours; he's
his own
Yes l know I know you've nursed
him and walked the floor with him.
and you've sat up at night and taken
care of him through that spell of ty-
phoid. when the doctor said there
wasn't a chance for him to pull through.
You've cooked for him and mended
for him and agonized for him and
hoped for him and lived for him.
Let's see. it's nearly nineteen years
ago that you heard his first feeble wall.
isn't Ne Nineteen years. How many
parties did you stay at home from for
his sake; how many dresses have you
worn when you really should have had
a new one to save money for his new
suit? How many times have you plan
ned and thought and worried to help
him out Of some foolish boyish scrape?
He is all you have, you say; all you
live for. Well. then. in the name OF
4ustice. give him his chance to live.
Let him learn how few people there
are who will care a cent whether he is
hungry or not, Let him learn how
MANY fellows there are in the world
who are twice as clever as he; let him
learn that the only way to get any
thing on earth is to work for 1t ana
work in dead and desperate earnest.
Let MN go. Let him learn to be
lonesome and neglected and made fun
of. let him learn to fight his own way.
Give him room. give him time. give
him freedom. or what he thinks is free
dom.
Your boy is too big and too strong
and too smart to be ruled by you any
longer, little mother; let him go and
rule himself, and let him go with
smile and a blessing.
Ungrateful, selfish cruel hearted?
Not a BIT he's a boy, that's all Some
day he win be a man if you'll let him.
Dependent upon you, is he. under it
all? Can't find his own socks and
wouldn't know how to buy a suit of
clothes for himself if he had all the
money of Croesus?
He'll find his socks all right when he
has to, and about that suit-don't you
worry. He'll get cheated few times;
bel: buy the wrong thing and have to
weir it, and he'll ledrn.
A cartoonist, Ell? Poor boy, he'll
learn to laugh at his own work and
to smile at his own appointments,
and he'll learn to he thankful for
chance to be plain, every day dub,
as they call them in the art rooms of
the big papers. He'll be joked for
coming from a country town, and he'll
be made fun of till there isn't an ounce
of conceit left in him and sometimes
he'll feel as If he'd give all the world
Just to be little again and run home
and hide his face in your faded old
dress, and cry and have you comfort
him.
And then he'll fall in love with
fool. and he'll fall in love with girl
who will do her worst to break his
heart. and he'll fall in love with
woman old enough to be his mother,
and he'll spend every penny he makes
buying presents TOT some cold hearted
creature who will make fun of him to
his very face.
And he'll get into evil ways maybe