The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-01-08
M E N , w. o M E N
 A N D T HIN C s

| l realize that when l get interested in
 subject, ride it to death, frequently
 making the mistake that because it ap-
 peals to me it must also please my read
 CTS.
 i If anyone would have foretold that Al.
 G. Fields book Watch Yourself Go
 By would lay unread on my shelves for
 three years then be picked up by chance
 and eagerly devoured, I would have thought it out of the bounds of reason. 1
 ! Having already devoted several columns ! to if, l feel that I owe those who are good enough to follow me day by day an
 explanation for yet another story out Of
 the volume. It's strange how the work
 has gripped me, for l am conscious or
 it's faults when measured by the con ventional literary standards, yet there is
 something so life-like in that it seems
 to spring naturally out of the environ ment in which it was born
 I Now, it fell to the genius of Mark
 Twain to give to the world two sure
 enough boys in the persons of Tom Saw
 yer and Huckieberry Finn, and just be-
 cause they are set down without apology for their acts and speech running true to
 nature, some wise library boards made up | of men and women cultured and straight 1 faced, have shut the doors of their l {.
 endeavored to stigmatize them as unit
 to associate with the goody-goody boys
 and girls of America It may be that
 they are a precious pair of unregenerates,
 but oh! how human and lovable are these
 heavenly twins"
 1 I am sure that neither Tom nor Huck
 were merely creations of Mark Twains
 brain, but that in both of them he in-
 corporated certain of his own boyhood
 thoughts and pranks, as well as those of
 other lads with whom he played. l may be put beyond the pale for saying it. but | lit was joy in my own life when my | two boys got big enough to read about
 the adventures of Mark Twain's two inn
 
 be done with it, for if I had my way, instead of debarring the two books from the public libraries, I would see to it that they were on the shelves of every Sunday school library in the land. It was an achievement for Mark Twain to give to literature such realistic and
 unabashed youngsters; but t/now back ro Watch Yourself Go By'' for all through "Al,' speaks of himself in an impersonal way as Alfred, and really accomplishes something truly artistic for he walks through the pages so naturally that we SC him from his earliest boyhood until his manhood, painted as he is without any effort to tone down the picture to soften his weaknesses or over-color it to bring out more vividly his virtues.
 The mind of boy! What grown-up can fathom it or understand it? I heartily concur in the following, taken from the who is to lecture here soon at Temple , Emanu-El: Nothing is more repulsive to
 me than the manner in which certain l earnest-minded parents fill their infants heads with their own pompous heresies. and make odious little conceited free eessful education, according to my view, is to protect the delicate minds of chl-
 dren from the imposition of the self willed opinions of their elders. They know as well as we do that they are feeling their way, and they often
 sand and one distractions of childhood to protect themselves from our untimely medding."
 The big thing which Al" has done in
 his autobiography is to show us the evolution of the mind, heart, soul and body of boy not with any pedagogical or psychological frills, but through the medium of a tale which holds us from start to finish. The first chapter and
 the strange fascination the well has for "Al-f-u-r-d" in his early childhood will ring true to nature, and find an echo in the heart of every mother who has had to watch over her young to keep them out of harms way, and womanly hearts will go out to the inquistive lad who,
 unable to overcome his obsesson, was only cured when laid out by the windlass. Then came the time when, seeing the older sboys swimming and splashing in the river, it was his hearts desire to get to it and plunge in its cooling depths. But he had given his boys word that he the hill, and then to help him in his re- solve he had been threatened with dire punishment if he even got his feet wet in it. The yearning would hot down, erful than the old desire to look down l into the bottom of the well. How it all
 takes me back to my own childhood. could swim the Chattahoochie river be- swimming.
 That Alfred was a sure-enough boy: He would stand on the front rail of his
 trundle bed. night and morning, with arms extended above him, palms together, to dive, to split the imaginary water. take header into the soft, downy tfcK; then thresh his arms about in swimming fashion as he had seen the big boys | cavort in the river" Isn't this photo- graphic? Fathers. just shut your eyes for ! a moment and forget the business of the I,o,