VIII.
THE ROWDY BOY.
You can tell him wherever you see him. There are certain marks or appearances which he carries about with him and which are never absent. For one thing you will find him with a cigarette stuck in his mouth, and a cigarette is one of the deadliest poisons in the world for boy or man. He wears his hat on the side or cocked back on his head. Frequently he stuffs both hands in his trousers’ pockets. He doesn’t attend school regularly; sometimes he starts for school and ends at the bathing pond or the baseball park. He is late at Sunday school, if he goes at all, and he stands ’round on the outside at church while the service is going on inside. He steals rides on trains and on trolley cars, and on passing vehicles of all descriptions. He is saucy and impudent to older people, and is always ready and willing to quarrel or fight with his mates. He is what the boys call a “bully.”
The loud girl and the rowdy boy are two things of which we have seen enough in this world. They are things; they are hardly worth the dignity of being called human beings.
I saw one of these rowdy boys in his own home not a great while ago. His mother said to him:
“Johnnie, you must always take off your hat whenever you come into the house.”
“Good gracious alive,” he said, “I can’t do anything right. What is the use of grabbing off your hat every time you come into your own house?”
He Stuffs Both Hands in His Trousers Pockets.
His mother looked sad, but said nothing. Presently she discovered that her little boy had brought some mud into the house on his shoes. In her sweetest tones she said:
“Johnnie, you must go to the door and wipe your feet now. See how you are tracking up the floor there!”
“Well,” said the rowdy boy with a snarl, “can’t the old floor be scoured? You must think this old house is gold.”
Now, I am a preacher, boys, and, being a preacher, of course I am what is called a “man of peace,” but I tell you that that was one time I came pretty near wishing that I wasn’t a preacher so that I might have given that boy what he deserved. I was sorry, for the time being, that he wasn’t my son. No manly little boy will ever talk to his mother in any such way. I suppose that boy thought it made him appear to be a very important personage, but he was very much mistaken. Don’t be rowdy, boys; don’t be rough; don’t be rude. You were made for better things.