Watch Yourself Go ByField, Al. G. (Alfred Griffith)
General
Watch Yourself Go By
Field, Al. G. (Alfred Griffith)
Circus performers -- United States -- Biography; Field, Al. G. (Alfred Griffith), 1848-1921; Wit and humor
Shuban Lee, ever loyal to Brownsville and her sleds, related how Alfred
had loaned his sled to a show fellow he brought home with him from
somewhere. "The show chap did not know much about sliding. Alfred's sled
was a whirlwind when it got to goin'. The show feller hauled the sled to
the top of Town Hill. He started down the hill. The sled run so fast it
crossed the Iron Bridge up to the top of Scrabbletown Hill. Afore he cud
git off she started back down the hill, across the Iron Bridge agin, up
to the top of Town Hill an' back she started. Half the men in town run
out an' tried to stop thet sled but hit wus so cold they couldn't do
hit. She just kept on a-goin' down one hill an' up tother."
Here the Uniontown man, with a contemptuous snort, said: "I s'pose he
just kept on slidin' till he froze to death?"
"No," Shuban answered, "he didn't freeze, he just kept on slidin' till
they shot him to keep him from starvin' to death. An' I kin prove hit by
ole man Smith an' if you won't believe him I kin show you the feller's
grave."
CHAPTER TWENTY
This world would be tiresome, we'd all get the blues,
If all the folks in it held just the same views;
So do your work to the best of your skill,
Some people won't like it, but other folks will.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French-Swiss philosopher, nearing the end of
his days complained that in all his life he never knew rest or content
for the reason he had never known a home. His mother died giving him
birth, his father was a shiftless dancing master. Rousseau claimed his
misfortunes began with his birth and clung to him all his life. Rousseau
was one of the few persons who have attained distinction without the aid
of a home in youth. No matter how humble the home, it is the beginning
of that education that brings out all the better nature of a human
being.
The home is the God-appointed educator of the young. We have educational
institutions, colleges, schools, but the real school where the lessons
of life are indelibly impressed upon the mind is the home. We write and
talk of the higher education. There is no higher education than that
taught in a well regulated home presided over by God-fearing, man-loving
parents whose lives are a sacrifice to create a future for their
children. The parents, rather than the children, should be given credit
for the successes of this life.
Alfred had separated himself from his home several times but never
decided to leave it for any lengthy period; but now the time had arrived
when it seemed to him the parting of the ways in his ambitious life was
at hand.
On the dead walls, fences and old buildings, were pasted highly colored
show bills announcing the coming of Thayer & Noyes Great American
Circus. Alfred decided he would go hence as a member of the troupe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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