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Show ALONG LIFE'S TRAIL By THOMAS A. CLARK Dean of Men, L ill v erJ i y of Illinois. CKhKkKWhKhKhhK 1324, Wealern Nts wtipLier Uuioa.) THIS ONE THING THE front (awn needed mowing; It requires an hour to do It. SI-niuns SI-niuns wanted to work; he had an hour at his disposal, so 1 set him at It. Forty For-ty minutes later I looked out. The mower was standing In the middle of the lawn, and Simons was on his hands and knees burrowing into one of the borders. "What are you doing?" I asked. "You won't finish the mowing if you don't hurry." lie was tossing weeds and debris out on the sward as I spoke to him, and littering up the lawn like a young pup digging for gopher. "This border needs cleaning out," he said, "and I thought I'd do that." "Hut you were to mow the lawn," I suggested. His time was up shortly and he had to go; he got neither job done, though he left my lawn looking like a boy in a barber shop with his hair half cut. It isn't so hard to begin a job as it Is to finish it, and it's much less interesting. inter-esting. It takes nerve and determination determi-nation to see a thing through. One is likely to grow tired and discouraged and bored before he reaches the end of a task. All sorts of attractions bid for one's attention; all sorts of entertaining enter-taining and interesting things lure us away, and yet if we are to get done, we must keep our eyes and our minds on the one thing In bund. "How are you getting on with your Job?" I said to Cridley one day last December. Cridley had been at it only a few months. "Well, you see, I'm tired of It. I've made up my mind that I'll change next month, so I'm going to let things slide jus now. I don't care if I do get Bred." "But how about finishing well a thing which you have begun? Don't you think that would make a good Impression Im-pression on those In charge of the new work you hope to take up?" "Well, It's hard to stick to one thing," he replied. . Few of us can run the lawn mower and weed the borders at the same time; few can be the acceptable pastor pas-tor of the First Presbyterian church while they manage a wholesale grocery gro-cery store. It is nearly Impossible to be president of the Y. 11. C. A. and captain of the football team without wrecking both our religion and the team. It is enough to do one thing, and it is a great deal more to get that one thing well done before we take up another. |