him into the fool-killer's bag!

LIX.

BOYS, YOU KNOW I LIKE YOU.

Boys, you know I like you and will stand a good deal of your swaggering
ways. I like to see how fresh you are, and do not want to have you
salted down too early by the processes of life. But one thing let me
ask you. Don't wear silk hats before the down is fully apparent upon
your chin. If there is an embarrassing sight left to one grown wan and
worn in watching the foolishness of folly, it is the sight of a
stripling in a plug hat. I would rather see a yearling colt hauling
lumber, or a babe in arms scanning Homer. It is cruel; it is
premature. Be a boy until you are fit to be a man, and hold to a boy's
mode of dress at least until you are old enough to command the respect
of sensible girls by something more notable than cigarette smoking and
athletic sports.

LX.

WHAT TO DO WITH GROWLERS.

I often hear people making a big fuss about little things. My path in
life leads me among many "kickers" and many "growlers." Do you know
what I would like to do with some of these malcontents and whiners? I
would like to send them up for a week to watch life in the county
hospital. I would like to seat them by a bedside where a noble woman
lies dying all alone of a terrible disease. I would like to have them
become acquainted with her bravery and the more than queenly calm with
which she confronts her destiny. I would like to have them linger in
the corridors and hear the moans from the wards and private rooms where
the maimed and the crippled and the incurable are faintly struggling in
the grasp of death. I would like to lead them through the children's
ward, where mites of humanity cursed with heredity's blight, removed
from a mother's bosom, consigned to suffering throughout the span of
their feeble days, lie faintly breathing their lives away. And then
would like to say to them: "You contemptible cowards, you abominable
fussers, you inexcusable kickers, see what the Lord might bring you to
if he unloosed the leash and set real troubles in your track. Quit
complaining and go to thanking heaven for all your unspeakable mercies!"

LXI.

GOD BLESS 'EM!

Every morning just at 7 the entire neighborhood turns out to see them
pass. She is a demure little lady with a face that makes one think of
a blush rose, a little past its prime, but mighty sweet to look upon.
She wears a mite of a white sun-bonnet, clean as fresh fall