Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 November 1883 — Father and Son. [ARTICLE]

Father and Son.

Every boy and every young man in bis teens looks forward with great anticipation to the day he will become of age, his 21st birthday, which says, by law, henceforth you are your own lord and master, and are now eligible to take a hand in politics, and do what you see fit, and not be subjected to the patter of the shingle on the bosom of your pants. The law guarantees all this, and with great expectations the average male specimen of humanity looks forward to the day when he shail be 21. Sometimes the thought makes a young man’s head swell, and by the time the great day arrives his clothe? are usually too small for him. He has a terrible attack of the big head. A young man of Fond du Lac county recently reached that interesting age, and on the morning of the eventful day he politely informed his father that he had no further use for him. Now, inasmuch as the father had been working for the young man twenty-one years, and, having proved a faithful servant, he didn’t propose to be discharged without prop-

er notice, and so he hunted up the records. He found the young man was not 21 until 3 o’clock p. m. That settled it. Going out and getting a good lath and depositing it in the woodshed, as had been the custom in the years gone by, he sent for his son, showed him the documents, grasped him by the collar, and enjoyed one of childhood’s happy hours with him, wore out the lath, and compelled the fresh, newlyfledged young man to finish hauling manure on a ten-acre lot by 3 o’clock. The father said he proposed to be the head of that family, and the young man would have to swear allegiance to that banner as long as he boarded at home. Some day that young man will rise up and call his father blessed for taking some of the self-conceit out of him just as he reached his majority. A thorough application of lath or shingle, at the right time and on the right spot, has made many a man out of roguish material.— Peck's Sun. \