Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-08-23
JOHN HENRY AND J. HENRI.

The man and woman who nave
worked hard usually recall their own
struggles and labor with desire that
their own children may be saved so
much of hardship and hard work as
themselves endured So 1t is common
to hear mothers and fathers say my
children shall not endure what 1 did
Well, John Henry Smith tried it.
He had worked hard from the time he
was boy. Helped his mother who was
widowed and the younger children.
Henry made money and friends, how
ever, all the time. Folks banked on
him. When his chance came, as
chances always do come, he HADN'T
the money to take advantage Of it but
a man who had known him from boy
hood offered IL on terms that Henry
could handle. That was the end or
the poverty. 1t wasn't the end of hard
work by any means. Henry only
worked harder. And one day he woke
up to the fact that he had as much
money g he knew what to do with de-
Gently. Also he had a cracking good
name and his word went a long way
with his neighbors.
Now John Henry had boy, born
when they were so happy and SO
pore" They called him John Henry
after his father. John Henry, Sr. re-
membering now hard things were for
his boyhood. tried to give John Henry,
Jr all that he had dreamed OF and
been denied when he was boy. He
went further and tried to make up to
himself the things he imagined he hau
lost by giving J. H., Jr., twice as much.
And so it turned out that the young
J. H. didn't do tap, had more money
than was good for him, went direct
funny college clothes, called himself
]. Henri and began to raise hades for
want of something to do. Now John
Henry, ST.. is having the worst time
of all his life. And Mrs. John H. is
trying to soo,he him by telling him
that perhaps young j. H. will turn
out all right after all But the old
man knows things about J. Henri that
he doesn't tell his mother. and has
about lost hope. He's getting so that
he hates TO open a letter WITH a.
strange return card and wonders
whether the policeman is going to stop
at his office when he comes UP the
street Worst of all is that he knows
his old friends pity him. And he has
tried TO do so much for that boy"
That's the nub. John Henry hadn't
learned the lesson that he had worked
out unconscously for himself the les
son of circumstance. He imagined
that circums tances make men when
the fact is that men make circum-
stances He knew that the very clerks
he promoted and trusted were being
developed into men by conditions pre-
cisely opposite those he made for his
boy; but he didn't realize it in his
own family. He simply assumed that
his boy was different from other hui
mans. Knowing what spoils boys he
still went about spelling his own. And
there John Henry is with ]. Henri
sick at heart, wondering why the boy
doesn't seem to love him and aid him
as he aided his own mother long years
before because he has deliberately
grated carelessness and seltishness,
unknowingly perhaps, on the sturdy
stem Of good stock.
Maybe the boy will come out Of it
some day but he has had a heavy han
dicap. He hasn't had to work like his
father did. His back has never ached
from labor-but he knows all about
headache in the morning. He doesn't
know how to live. hasn't sense OF re-
sponsibility, never knew what a dollar
costs. just an idler. And, at that, the
boy is the least to blame.
Moral: o, let everyone draw his own