The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-04-20
Seventeen And
&. Life's Great
Moments
tstss -.

- u
. lock up a reference l had been wanting
for several days. As / entered the
reading room l saw the dull CLEAN of
the brass buttons on the double breasted
blue coat of my old sea captain friend,
/ went over to see what he was read
ing and. found him with an old copy
of a magazine containing Booth Tark-
ington's Seventeen His piratical
monstachios waved rakishly below his
twinkling eyes set in their frames of
aayriad wrinkles. and his cheeks glowcd
scientifically. He greeted me with what
he thought was whisper. but his voice.
used to shouting down space and
through gales. was not for the cloisteral
quiet of a library. We began to at
tract attention from one of the at
pendants, a rather spinsterish looking
guardian of books and quiet, so as soon
as / could I dragged the captain to
booth at Kill joys, and over tea and
cinnamon toast, I queried, well, how
do you like 'Seventeen'?''
Like? Like me eyes: You don't
like things yous strong for! Too,
peekid a~word Yssee, I'm Just old
enough to appreciate it and that man
has done such n whale of good thing
that it just gives me the grins all over,
and now and then pushes tear out O.
the corner o one eye.
These here dramatists has took Will
lie Baxter, seventeen, right at the start
and MAps you into one o his smaller
tragedies and life to, seventeen is,
after all. mostly tragedies at the hands
o. his elders and youngers. This here
young tragedy is his sister. Jane count
less years younger and who's such
baby she still calls him Wil-lee. They
say man amt never hero to his
valet, but l amt never heard nobody
. say what a terrible trial a young sister
: can be to a boy. Here's seventeen, all
grown up to Il grown man III his own
eyes and who yet has TO fight against
all the swaddling clothes his family
= wants to keep him in. He comes in
+ with Tale O. Two stiles in one
hand an an apple in the tother. Child
ish hangover is this here appetite. He's
: absolutely recreating Sidney Carton in
q himself and living every move and Nigh
Z heroic impulse o his hero. Sidney
Carton, the hero. he's like me in many
ways, and l kinda feel like him some
{ times. He's a barrister and he drinks
of course. l don't drink yet, but /
: probably will some day. / could speak
like poetry sometime-only he did,
There you got Willie complete; mix
/, ture o small boy and embryonic man.
Feeling all the great drive O. the high
= potry % existence and heroism and
iedals that nobody else in all the world
= can ever attain to but boy O seven
teen. And then here comes Jane. Il
pulling infant calling Wil-lee. prying
into the great privacy O his life and
feelins.' and blabing maA's MOST sa-
cred sentiments plumb ont in the glar-
ing open where older folksll laugh at
Z EN-; and having EN- laughed at is the
most hurting and the most sacriIigeous
thing that can happen to Willie. Cad,
bnt how he'd like to choke this young
female upstart; but then a great bar
rister like Carton Id never descend to
petty girl children.
q And right into this scene pops IN
the fact that Pa Baxter is sort o. in
tolerant o seventeen as forty so often
is, and that Willie's mother has got all
4the understanding o a mothers heart.
1t all comes out in the dress suit af-
fair. Willie wants one because all
Young men have dress suits and he's
told you'd look fine in dress suit
when you're. growing like a tadpole.
Imagine that Sidney Carton a tad
pole His misery makes him say to his
4pa, You make me feel like a baby or
calf, and can you imagine anything
more senseless or more useless to sew
eflteen than a baby or a calf. That
there line is one O. the greatest lines in
all the tragedies O. the world that has
ever been wrote. It's Greek tragedy in
its starkness, and Hamlet was only. a
poor Simple Simon in comparison.
"Then in this scene comes Willie
gang and all the grave comedy o vii.
hes wantin to be called Baxter,
Baxter, like any other man in this
town And all after bein' reminded
by his pa that the boys call him Silly
Bill. Willie explains this away and
then comes the gang and the news
that a girl visitor is comm to town. "a
2reg'lar ringdinger.' That's the first
news O the heroine, and to it Willie
shifts contemptuous like. Well, what
ifeshe is? Makes little difference to
me, / guess with accent on the me.
Il never saw one in my whole life I'd
care whether she lived or died. They
could all die. wouldn't notice. He's
sure O. himself and his heart, and yet
in few minutes he's the living, breath
ing reincarnation o Sidney Carton and
lives over that heroic scene where for
the love o heightened French aristo-
crat who was a peach Carton dies.
He feels so absolutely like his ideal
that he poses and spouts, it's afar, far
better thing l do . than have
ever done before . it's far