Humorous stories; Washington (State) -- Fiction; Western stories
"Keats might have turned out even worse than I did," he says, "but
if there wasn't going to be any way where he could do it legally, what
was the use? He'd probably sometime have killed a boy that called him
Goldilocks, and then the law might have made it unpleasant for him. I
thought it was only fair to give him a chance to live peaceful. Of course
in my own case mamma acted for the best without knowing it. We needed
fighters, and I wouldn't have been anything at all like a fighter if she
hadn't made me wear those curls till my whiskers began to show above the
surface. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was a born coward, but those golden
strands took all that out of me. I had to fight.
"And see what it did for me in the Army. I don't want to talk about
myself, but I made a good average fighter and I would have been there
to the last if I'd had my rights. And I simply owe it all to my dear
mother. You might say she made me the man I am. I wouldn't ever have been
tough if she'd cut my hair humanely from six years on. I certainly hope
Keats hasn't gone too long. One of us in a family is enough."
That's the way Bugs talks, and it sounds right sensible. What I say now
is, the idee had ought to be took up by the War Department at Washington,
D. C. Let 'em pass a law that one boy out of, say, twenty-five has
got to wear curls till his voice changes. By that time, going round in
this here scenic investiture, as you might say, he will be a demon. In
peace times it may add to our crimes of violence, but look what it will
be when another war comes. We'll have the finest line of shock troops
the world has ever produced, fit and anxious to fight, having led an
embittered existence long enough to make it permanent. No line would
ever stand against a charge of them devils. They would be a great
national asset and might save the country while we was getting ready
to begin to prepare a couple months after war was declared on us.
Still I don't suppose it will be took up, and I ain't got time to go down
and preach it to Congress personally.
And now let me tell you one thing: I'm going to sleep to-night without a
care on my mind for the first time in a year. This here Bugs unites to
the distinction of his name a quick and handy nature, and my busiest
troubles are over.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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