The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evolution of Dodd, by William Hawley Smith

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Title: The Evolution of Dodd

Author: William Hawley Smith

Release Date: September 8, 2004 [EBook #13398]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVOLUTION OF DODD ***

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THE EVOLUTION OF "DODD"

A Pedagogical Story

Giving his Struggle for the

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Tracing

HIS CHANCES, HIS CHANGES, AND HOW HE CAME OUT.

BY

WILLIAM HAWLEY SMITH.

MDCCCXCVII.

"Happy is the man who grinds at the mill;
The mill turns 'round and he stands there still."

"Social institutions are made for man,
and not man for social institutions."

"The supreme purpose of creation
is the development of the individual."

THE EVOLUTION OF "DODD."

CHAPTER I.

There was joy in the Weaver household when the child was born, and when
it had been duly announced that it was a boy. The event was the first
of the kind in this particular branch of the Weaver family, and, as is
always the case, there was such rejoicing as does not come with the
recurrence of like episodes. A man hardly feels sure of his manhood
till the magic word father is put in the vocative case and applied to
him direct, and the apotheosis of woman comes with maternity.

There is nothing remarkable about all this. It is the same the world
around. But it is the usual that demands most of our time and
attention here below, whether we wish it so or otherwise; and although
we are everlastingly running after the strange and eccentric in human
nature, as well as in all other branches of creation, it is the rule
and not the exception that we have to deal with during most of our
lives.

This Weaver family, father and mother, were much like other young
fathers and mothers, and their child was not unlike other first-born
children. His first low cry and his struggle for breath were just such
as the officiating doctor had witnessed a hundred times, and doubtless
his last moan and gasp will be such as the attending physician will
have seen many a time and oft.

It is not the unusual that this