A BOY ALL OVER | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, March 4, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 10

A BOY ALL OVER.

As I was sitting in my friend’s room the other day, some one came up stairs whistling a jolly air.

“There comes Ned,” said a lady in the corner of the bay window, busy with worsted work, “and everything will be topsy turvy. You may as well finish your story another time, for there’s no use trying to do anything when that boy is around.”

In came Ned, an embodied breeze,—one of those fluttering, fragrant, saucy summer breezes that scatter your manuscript leaves over the lawn, as if they were so many rose leaves—pray Heaven they may be as sweet!—that toss your hair and flutter your ribbons, and generally disarrange whatever airy possessions you chance to have around you. I say Ned came in like just such a breeze. Everybody in the room was a little afraid of him, yet the sound of his footsteps, the echo of his merry whistling, the ring of his boyish voice, brought smiles to every lip, a quicker beating to every heart; in short, his coming brought life into the room. In the course of a minute Ned had stepped into his mother’s work-basket, had tossed his aunt’s ball of pink worsted to the ceiling, had pulled the cat’s tail, and teased his little sister till she wished “boys wouldn’t bozzer,” then he sunk into a chair and began to beg pathetically for his dinner. But at the sound of a comrade’s voice he dashed out of the room again, dragging his mother’s knitting after him, and breaking the yarn by a vigorous kick as he shut the door.

“I should think you would send that boy away to school if you are going to,” said Aunt Grace, taking a false stitch in her crocheting and making a very bad place. “I would as soon live with a whirlwind.”

“Ned has wonderful spirits,” said the mother, joining the severed yarn.

“Truly wonderful,” replied the aunt, in tones of quiet sarcasm; “so wonderful that I wouldn’t like to be responsible for his future unless they are toned down pretty soon.”

“I think you are a little hard upon Ned, sister. He is generous and brave and truthful, and—”

“And utterly inconsiderate of everybody’s feelings or comfort,” interrupted the aunt. “What do you think he did this morning? Came pounding on my door at five o’clock, after paper for his kite, and he knows what a poor sleeper I am, and how much I depend upon my morning nap!”

“He knows, but he forgets,” said the mother gently.

The conversation was interrupted by what seemed a miniature hailstorm, but proved to be a shower of pebbles thrown against auntie’s window, giving the good lady a sad “start.” Mamma looked grieved and anxious, and I took up the cudgels for “that young good-for-nothing.”

“I think, auntie,” said I, “that you are a stickler for the best of its kind in everything.”

“Of course, I am,” replied the irate lady, the flush of annoyance fading from her thin cheek.

“Well, then, you ought to rejoice in Ned; for you must admit that he is a boy all over, from the crown of his cropped head to the soles of his mud-tracking feet—no adulterated article there.”

“What of that, pray?”

“Why, everything. Real boy, real man. All this mischief and noise and nonsense means courage, enterprise, will, perseverance,—a joyous, irresistible temperament, that sheds troubles and trials as a duck’s back sheds water. Effervescence now means fullness by-and-by. Your jovial, frolicsome boy, provided he have a sound, warm heart, and good brain, becomes the powerful, genial, useful man, with not only the wish, but the force to do his part toward setting the world right.”

Ned’s mother smiled and drew a long breath as I finished my little speech.

“I am glad to hear you say a good word for Ned,” said she.

“I don’t wonder,” said auntie, somewhat softened; “somebody is always complaining about him and wishing that he would go to school, and yet I don’t know what we should do without him, after all.”

Ay, there’s the rub—what to do without him! Many a mother and many a sensitive, fastidious aunt, rubbed and jarred and fretted through the childhood of their boys, depriving them of much rightful sunshine, much needed companionship, to see them at last go away to the defense of their country.

The patience of kindly hearts can no longer avail for those boys. They jar upon no sensitive nerves, they disturb no quiet. But others fill their places; boys as full of possibilities, ay, and every whit as troublesome as they. They are here, brave, big-hearted, hot-headed fellows. Often you are at a loss to know what to do with them, but what could you do without them?—Phrenological Journal.