| Show A LECTURE ON A SPOON thu hired mau got it bat but mailed to t comprehend a word of it 11 1 I 1 remember bar aid said the of the party a dispensation of what might be called spart justice it h happened opp a n ad ahn I 1 wai was a boy and made is laoj lasting impression ati a incidents of the kind do on a youthful mind I 1 our folks folls at home had some old silver spoons that had been in con for generation and were am emill 01 and mod thin and c in their shallow bowls the makes of a cry tooth in the tile family each poon spoon had a history and an on as I 1 spoons did have in those day days and they y were looked after sifter with the greatest care al mother placed them under her billow I 1 flow e eiery er nig night t and the whole fam fain I 1 bo be reg regularly barly awakened by a 1 night clatter of rattling spoons as a tho the had a rost restless lets habit of ot falling out of oed so their value was enhanced by the sleepless nights they cost well one of those precious aprons was biating mi mia awing ting and there was a gre it to do over it the se sen rants ants waru ere all questioned but no one had seen tho missing bi bloon loots that night a colored gill gitl who had been taken in sonio months before by my mother and who was a bright and aither precocious chara character ctet tm told of seeing a new it red man on the premises hiding something in bis his jacket sho she even ess ayed to find the jacket and sure enough be tween the lining and the outside was found fount tho the lost spoon my mother was so happy in ing her prope tv that site the roan man to go scot free not so my father faman who was a solemn churchgoer church h goer goar 11 1 I will give him a lecture on the sin of stealing he said and land keep him as he is a useful man I 1 am aru ery erv sure he will never cover steal from us a again aid 1 I accompanied my father father to the kitchen where the rain min was r aking ashes over the tile coals of a hot fire and ana was preparing to go to bed he rat oat submissively still R ai mv f ather appeared carrying a large bible and lie listened to the lecture that was as delly ed with an unmoved countenance I 1 slept lap t and awak awakened ered several times before ore it was ti nishel my fathers solemn roice ico affected me like a so oriale and I 1 did not try to fathom the lungu ago be he used the tile culprit WAS a german and I 1 have since learned he lie did not understand one word my father said to him I 1 nor even the natu e of the accusation against him I 1 thought then as I 1 listened to my fathers bass tones in 1 that grim monologue th it t the punishment kentivas men was adequate id equate tot to the he sin I 1 had been lectured myself and would hare have confes confessed ned to almost anything to have the tile con consequences sequence i the lecture was war supplemented by a prater in wh which i ch iny f ather implore il d divino ivine forgiveness for the tile offender the german took it all in good part and remained in his situation but was no doubt care carefully fully watched some years after the colored girl acknowledged that tha t she hid the spoon poon in the it in order to get r rid 1 I of him and gratify her love for mischief As he lie never alluded to it in any any way way wo we could not tell what he thought ht of f the services of that night or how i inch of the long on moral lecture had been comprehended pretended ended but I 1 am ant certain tan he never understood the criminal catulo odthe of the oct occasion sion detroit free frea press |
