OCR Text |
Show ALONG LIFE b A TRAIL Dy THOMAS A. CLARK VACATIONS """TTT me hastily IIKEE young B trnln 1 and noisily into ter, ( K,ved out of the s tat ion i '-civ escaped being ett 1 tiun was over, and tluj g Dack to work. As tl ej thcIr various et in their seats, mussed up the ttle -"re be, ? criminating use of then 1 X rrTA my-float my-float through the cai. 1 . r rarmen with New ears eve uu Con"res's hotel, with a lovely forma Y nf Northwestern university, and wlth'an'an n party at the Country Cl "I am simply dead," one of them said "and I l ave a pack of back work fhand in tomorrow." The babble conversation ceased slior ly a. the silence became so great that I tu ned ,o find the cause. They f their tired, pallid faces and the dark rings under their eyes show ng a well what a lovely, restful vacation thev had had. ' The man who said that it takes the strongest constitution to stand be average trip for the health might have added that it takes the strongest man to stand the ordinary vacation. A woman whom I once knew when asked if she employed a servant girl, remarked re-marked that she had one, but that she was just then doing her own work. . She hoped as soon as she was strong enough to try one again. I have often felt that It might be a good thing to require young people to pass a physical physi-cal test to determine whether or not they are strong enough to Indulge in the dissipations of a vacation. A line of pale, sad-eyed, tired, and physically knocked-out undergraduates who come Into my office after every vacation may have had a "peach of a time," but they very seldom reveal much of the bloom on their return. A real vacation vaca-tion ought to be stimulating and restful, rest-ful, but it oftentimes leaves them exhausted, ex-hausted, unprepared for their work, and worth nothing for days after they get back. Instead of finding themselves them-selves eager and ready for hard work, they come back to rest up. There is no more severe test of a man's character than the way in which he spends the time that is his own and the way in which he puts in the hours or days of leisure and vacation. Most of the moral delinquents whom I know strayed away from the path of virtue and self-control first when they had nothing else to do when they were having a vacation. FALSE FACES BILL WITHERS and I Bill lived across the road from us had been reading "Bentley Burrows, or The Skeleton Hand," a tale of ghosts and bandits and general horror, continued from week to week In "The Saturday Night," a literary Journal which our hired man bought every week at Cole's drug store in town. Shivering with fear, I was just finishing the last chapter In the dusk of a dull November Novem-ber evening, when I heard a knock at the door. I called "Come in," as was the polite custom in our community, and to my horror a real bandit entered leather leggins, big revolver, bristling bris-tling moustache, and all. I was frightened fright-ened for a moment, and then I caught sight of a lock of curly red hair sticking stick-ing out through a hole in the sombrero and a freckled ear protruding. It was only Bill Withers wearing a false face and trying to fool me. I have had the experience often since. I was at a party a few nights ago, where on the surface everything was hilarious. Through the dim light, however, I could see that all the fellows fel-lows were wearing false faces. Above the din of the ragtime sounded out from the long-suffering piano I could detect the hollow unnatural voices Issuing Is-suing through the masks that the men were wearing. I watched Mary Gay, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, and I thought I had never seen a happier and a more animated ani-mated face. She was smiling on every one and showing a vivacity and an Interest In-terest that held a pleased crowd about her. A few minutes later I came upon her unobserved as she was standing before the mirror In the hallway surreptitiously sur-reptitiously adjusting her false face and I could see how pitifully bored and tired she looked. I ran onto Jim Burton one Sunday this summer at church with his parents. par-ents. He was looking pious, attentive and altogether unsophisticated As he leaned over to pick a hymn book from the floor I could see bow crudely ho had adjusted bis false face, for underneath under-neath he was the same Irreligious r-reverant, r-reverant, Irresponsible youth whom I had known at college. The false faces which we wear or see every day seldom deceive anyone They are like rouge or o.P,rK1 r. o! or hair dye or face powder-no otto ver thinks them real. We put thetn on to make ourselves beautif,,, or lm. presslve to our teachers or our sweet- folks or the minister or our Creator orreTrent,,m,o,,,,,rwiw'1- BUck o rneR7lI,?s'r""-fecklcdear Bucks out and gives us away. |