The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1913-09-04
Was 1t your fault?

was II your Iaull!
Certainly not. 1t was the fault
entirely of that inscrutable abstrac-
tion which they call Providence.
Providence made you small boy,
to begin with; and Providence ad-
ditionally saw to It that everything
which was most undesirable in the
way Of a dog should follow you
home; yet when this combination re-
suited in Its usual disaster, Provi-
dence always disCreetlv stood from
under and left you to get out OF
the mess as best you might. by your
self.
Really, to be a small bry is to be
but hangeron by sufferahce to the
ragged edge OF the world, belong
ing to no rightful zone Of enjoyment,
and possessed of weird disqualified
lions which shut one oht Of each
and every kingdom-anI nal, vege-
table or mineral.
They were very illNgical-you
thought-also very mum rrous. For
to an abiding Mother ind Father
were added variable riurses and
Cooks, fairly constant Aunt, her
attendant Uncle, and wAole droves
of intermittent Grandpa cents. And
1t seemed to be the chief business
OF everybody either tc berate you
for not being around when they
wanted you to be around, or to be-
rate you for being arounl when they
wanted you not to be. And the
only safe rule to go by was to hur-
ry out OF the way the very minute
you found yourself wanting to stay.
and vice versa.
Very Illogical. According to
Their Dictum no sooner did you sue
coed in outgrowIng the shameful
condition of wanting privileges for
which you were too young" than
you found you had entered that
shameless state of covetinE diver
sions for which you were too old"
II there were a period Of exact suit
ability. you missed 1t; 1t lcaped by
you in the night. No morning ever
dawned upon it.
They were formidable only when
massed together into Forbidding
Society, strewing "don'ts" In the
patch Of experiments. like lacks In
advance OF bicycle: collectively.
They stood for all things evil; in
Lividually, though They we're not
so bad.
Your father was pretty harmless
except on Sundays. He devoted that
holy day OF rest to evening up scores
as he had been unable to attend to
on week days after he came home
from business. At least, so It SEEM
ed. Sunday looms In memory as 4
day Of much bllsterlng. morally and
bodily.
He would have known nothing
about anything, II your mother had
not told him. at supper time. But
everything came up after the pic
how you had been kept in at school;
or barred out. as the case might be;
what you had done to Jimmy BaX-
ter's cat; what you had said to jim
my himself; and what Iimmy's
mother had said 20 yOu-oh, nothing
was kept sacred. Your mothers ex-
cuse for all this breach Of bad faith
was that she wsnted to make a good
boy out Of yos. First the teacher
took whack at you; then your
mother; finally your father. All for
the same thing too.
No matter bow far away fro.n
the house you 1'ere when you were
bad you always found that newu
or 1t got home first. Hearing It,.
your mother used to say She wa
surprised" and your father used
to say that lie expected rs much. "
1t is rather queer that you should
have happened to be their son, for
they knew so little about you. Your
mother was always imagining you
to be the possessor Of stack Of
virtues highly Impossible 10 you'
and your father was generally sus-
pecting you Of heap Of Ubiquitous
conceptions, equally impossible.
Aunt Leila was the only ono who
seemed capable Of arriving at a de-
cent average; you were just boy"
to her, which simpllied a lot Of
things. When you and a scrape
tumbled into the house together,
Aunt Leila was neither surprised
nor expectant; she merely grinned
companionably or laughed outright.
Some people called your Aunt
Leila young; a palpable mis-state-
ment, for she was married-how &C.
count for Uncle Edmund else? And
even at that tender age-yuu
knew that matrimony was very murh
Of q settler. so far as youth Was
concerned.
Now In the affair-or rather, con-