A Certain Kind Of Boy

I am always sorry to see a boy get angry, pack up a tooth-brush and a shirt, and leave his home. His chances for the future are a little doubtful. It is hard to prognosticate whether he will fracture limestone in the streets of a great city or become President of the United States. The boy mentioned hovvever is much better off than the youth who cannot sunomon up enough courage to uncoil the grape-vines of his heart and leave the home nest. While other boys put on a suit of overalls and wrench laurels and cauliflower from fate, he hangs around home and eats his fathers groceries. He certainly has an unstarched spinal column. The question presented to his gentle mind is, „ 1 whether he should niarrv and live with his parents or with his fatherin law, he finally settles the matter and comprornises by living alternately with each. He is no good. He is certainly no good. His parents do not yearn to see him, he comes, just the same, as regular as a boil. He hangs around home and eats other peoples groceries and borrows other people's newspapers, and sits on the counter of the store until the owner calis him a counter-irritant. There is nothing in the world more un-American than this one horse barnacle on the clam shell of home. The average American wonld rather bust up in business six times in four years and settle for nine cents on the dollar, than lead such a life. He is not an American, but he is a wart on the face of nature, and I will not lay his existence on any other country. But he will not last long. He will soon be strolling through the corriders of the sweet subsequently. He will breath a certain amount of atmosphere for a while, but one day the undertaker will buy a new pair of black gloves, come and get hini, carefully place him in a nail keg, and convey him in a dray to the crematoire. That will be all. There will be no deep abiding sorrow for him here: public buildings will not be draped in black, the flag on the court-house will still float at the top of the staff, and you can get your mail at the usual time. The band will not play sadly because this tail end of a misspent life has tapered down to death, and the soft shapeless features are still. You will have no trouble getting a draft cashed on that day, and we will all go to Whitmore Lake as we had planned. Blessed be the time that matures the young man and the promissory note.