The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1916-02-25
THE HIRED MAN

The Hired Man was recently mad
yertently drawn into discussion and
settlement of a row in a public school
caused by the janitor cracking big
bow on the cocoanut with a broom
handle. The boy is obscene, vulgar,
profane, unruly, talky, blabbv and in
solent. The janitor has suffered long
and has been kind. Two or three
terms of school before this, during
which the janitor has been at that
same post, this boy has been the ruin
alton of decorum and decency. A
time or two before he has been sus-
pended. His language on the school
ground has been prohibitive. His
mother is sure an angel. She is GO
ing to take the angels part. She is
not going to take any chances on his
wings getting nipped in the bud. So
the Hired Man was drawn into the af-
fair. The school board promptly sus-
pended the young outlaw and sets the
price on his return: He must apologize
TO the janitor and school and school
board, ger down off his high-horse and
become at least decent enough to root
artichokes with hogs. His mother will
not stand for the apologizlng perform
ance but is going to close the doors
of school, prosecute the janitor, i'm
pugn the school boards motives, fire
the principal of the school, order her
child to associate in different neigh
borhood and thus deprive the young
people in that region of his beatific as
ISOLATION and angelic hilarity and gen
eral runt performances and scrub GUS
sedness. The Hired Man is going to
do all he can to help this lad out of
his difficulty. 1t is too bad that ado
lescent life where he has been running
must now be deprived of obscenity
and vulgarity For the little girls not
to need to wonder what certain new
vulgar words mean, and for the little
boys to have nothing at which to
is carrying things little too far, of
course.
In another part of the state while
the Hired Man was about his usual
business one day this week. he came
to a nice house on the corner On
the porch of the house was man 80
years old, weight los pounds, see-saw-
ing on big mellow toned French harp.
See-saw, See-Saw, see-saw was all he
knew about anything. He had no
brain power at all. He grinned at the
Hired Man and kept on see-sawing.
passed there again in an hour and the
young man was amusing himself with
two wing feathers of fowl. He had
never seen anything quite SO interest
ing as those feathers. He was all OBJ
livious to everything but those two
listening feathers and their possibii-
ties His horizon was Just the size of
a fve-pound lard pail lid and about
as deep. He had for the feathers the
same senseless grin that he had for
me the hour before. The Hired Man
recalled the motto that the famous
breakfast food man publishes There
is a reason. | wondered where the
|! reason was in this case. 1t was in nc
H before me. Just then a nice-lookine
woman of forty-fve>came out on the
/ porch with a new broom in her hands
/ and begun some sweeping operations
II | saw in moment that she was not thu
Il reason. She could not have been. The
II only possible chance for her to be the
II reason was peradventure her face
H showed an ungovernable temper, bu
II that was too remote to lay the i'll t.
Il her door, Then / recalled the scrip
Il ture in Deuteronomy where we arr
II told that 81 visited the iniquities o
II fathers upon the children unto the 3rC
II and 4th generation of them that hat,
i me-" Then l thought that the diff
II fculty laid deeper than this woman
Il and her husband. 1t was back t
II grandfather or grandmother, or nigh
II have been even two generations fur
II ther back than that. since sins ar
/ transmitted to the distance of fou
II generations. | went and asked goo
II doctor how about meanness breaking
out after it has passed through fathe
and son three times without showing
up. He told me that it is hard to ge
rid of it in three generations. Then
said to myself that is pretty har
pill to swallow but | am mighty gla
about it. He has told us the bite
truth. If this fellows great grand
father is over in heaven looking dow
on his idiot greatgrandchild, for whic
his sins are responsible. | hope he wi
/ pull few feathers out his angC
wings and save them until the DO
arrives And | thought too of man
\ good men and women on earth toda
Il who blush for some malformed chill
Il with its undiscovered mind. who SUI
\ fer their humiliation in sadness {
heart, wondering what they have don
when they arc not responsible at al
the difficulty having originated "a
back with some delinquent fore-fatht
of whom they know but little. TIL;
condition is what is known as TT
original SIM" thing that some foil
deny.
One day this week one of those Ion
legged bull dogs marched around Il
town with the air of fighter. Il
would run against smaller dog ar
Il knock him over and then bite hi