Evening star., 1924-10-22

stick their heads out and shrek:
"Old Booze! Old Booze"
The guiding cord between restraint
and n-restraint would give way.
Much as a cat, lashing its tail, after
much teasing, slants back its ears,
spring. SO Old Booze picked up his
| trusty sickle, gave a shout and bore
| down on his detractors.
Head up, eyes flashing, sickle
cleaning, the old colored man stamp
ed across the lawns directly for his
prosecutors. His wildly thrashing
! arms spelled destruction to all who
came within their reach.
Then the mothers of the block
would get into action. call off their
| boys and placate Old Booze with
| kindly words, whereupon he would
return to his work. muttering, NUT
| tering, muttering.
X u n
Pat was another of these charac-
ters. He was such a typical Irishman
that his name fitted him from the
ground up. He. too. was stocky, and
he, too. earned his living by tending
lawns and doing odd jobs.
Pat, like true Irishman, needed no
| weapon Of defense other than his
| brawny arms and capable fists.
Pat! Pat! Ya-a-a Pat"
Heroically Pat resisted the lure Of
the taunts Give them credit-they
| never sought vengeance until the in
suit became grievous
The mere yelling OF ones name, of
course, II the infection were prop
erly done. was almost enough to make
one want to draw blood. Ceaseless
repetition almost snapped the cord.
The stroke that cut 1t was the fol-
lowing:
Pat! Pat! Ate rat! Pat! Pat, Ate
a rat"
This lyric was the crowning insult,
the last straw that broke Pats
bumped back. This efrusion gave him
the deepest hurt OF all. For them
little brats to say he ate a rat, be-
gorrah!
ran away. Gleefully the boys cried:
Pat. Pat" And poor old Pat. mutter-
ing to his befuddled self, went back to
his Job of clipping the hedge. What was
he mutterins? How do know?
was half way down the block by that
time!
Old Annie was one Of the female
characters in this Summer drama
Just what she did, roaming into a
neigh hborhood, to justify her existence
is something unknown at this dis
tance in time and space. She. too,
owing to her succumbng TO the
taunts of the boys, was baited regu-
larly.
"Old Annie Old Annie"
This aspersion upon her age always
drew her righteous anger. No mat
ter where she was, all a boy had to
do was cast II at her, when she was
after him as fast as she could go,
which was not very fast, owing to her
long skirts.
There is a legend of the evening
when Annie began to dance to the
tunes of a hurdy -gurdy. AT last she
began to feel the rhythm, much
Python priestess of old might have,
and ono by one her garments began
to fiutter to the ground. While the
neighborhood was watching in fasci
mated horror, the police patrol sud
denly descended upon the scene.
Much madness Is divinest sense
To a discerning eye:
Much sense .he starkest madness
'Tis the ma jority
In this, as all prevails:
Assent. and you are sane:
Demur-you're straightwsy dangerous
And handled with chain.
So Emily Dickinson, perhaps great
est Of woman poets, wrote long ago.
To apply the quotation to the poor
creatures of this sketch may seem
somewhat of a stretch, yet it brings
out the point / want to make, that
these characters were not as crazy"
as commonly reputed, but had about
them, eccentric they were,
points of undoubted merit
II teach that all men are mad" said
Horace. Out of this common bond let
us hold in pleasant remembrance
these queer characters OF our youth,
who. perhaps, in the final analysis,
were not so queer, after all,