You’re the little fellow’s idol, you’re the wisest of the wise;
In his little mind about you no suspicions ever rise;
He believes in you devoutly, holds that all you say and do
He will say and do in your way when he’s grown up just like you.

  Oh, it sometimes makes me shudder when I hear my boy repeat
  Some careless phrase I’ve uttered in the language of the street;
  And it sets my heart to grieving when some little fault I see
  And I know beyond all doubting that he picked it up from me.

  There’s a wide-eyed little fellow who believes you’re always right,
  And his ears are always open and he watches day and night. 
  You are setting an example every day in all you do
  For the little boy who’s waiting to grow up to be like you.

“Now, there’s some talk of a Father’s Day.”

“Oh, father doesn’t want a day.  Give him a night off.”

“I was never so tired in my life.  I’ve had a perfectly awful day.  But I got Father home safely, and that’s something.  It was his annual day to be a boy again, to be a regular pal to me, as he likes to express it.  So I have been out in the woods with him.

“I inferred from his remarks when he invited me to go that he intended to win my confidence and help me in my troubles.  But by noon he had broken his glasses, worn blisters on both heels, scraped his shins, lost his new fishing reel, sunk a rowboat, scalded his mouth, burned his bald spot in the sun and torn the seat out of his trousers, so I think he must have postponed whatever he had to say of an intimate nature.

“If writers and lecturers only knew the suffering they bring to impressionable parents by goading them into trying to be their boys’ chums they certainly would cease their efforts out of sheer pity.”

FAULTS

“Everybody has his faults,” said Uncle Eben.  “De principal difference in folks is whether dey’s sorry for ’em or proud of ’em.”

It is so easy to find fault that self-respecting persons ought to be ashamed to waste their energies in that way.

It only takes a few minutes to find in others the faults we can’t discover in ourselves in a lifetime.

A widely known Highland drover sold a horse to an Englishman.

A few days afterward the buyer returned to him.

“You said that horse had no faults.”

“Well, no mair had he.”

“He’s nearly blind!” said the indignant Englishman.

“Why, mon, that’s no’ his fau’t—­that’s his misfortune.”

FEES

See Tips.

FICTION

The husband was seeing his beloved wife off for a holiday.  “Maggie, dear,” he said, “hadn’t you better take some fiction with you to while away the time?”