Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1910 — WANTED, SOME PATCHES. [ARTICLE]

WANTED, SOME PATCHES.

A small boy sat by himself on a stone wall. Behind the wall, and at some distance from it, was an ivy-col-ored stone house suggesting wealth and comfort. The other houses in the neighborhod were much more modest, and the group of children playing on the common in front of the stone house had the cheerfully soiled and ragged aspect of youngsters whose parents are not much given to providing fine clothes for their children to play in. But the boy sitting on the wall evidently belonged to the stone house, and bis garments had a corresponding neatness. Presently a jlady came out of the house and moved down the path to the -sidewalk. "Hello, Bobby!” she remarked, when she reached thesmall bqy, “You seem to be flocking by yourself. Anything the matter?” Bobby looked up gloomily. "I’m sick of it, Aunt Ellen,” he replied, bitterly. "Thatfs what’s the matter.” “Sitting on a wall never got anybody anywhere yet,” she said, pleasantly. “What are you sick of?” “Clothes,” replied Bobby. “Clothes! What’s the matter with, your clothes? They look all right to. me.” “That’s because you’re not a boy,” replied Bobby, briefly. "Perhaps it is,” agreed his aunt. “But what’s the matter with them? You’re quite the best dressed boy in the neighborhood.” . “Humph!” sniffed-Bobby. He leaned toward her confidentially. "Don’t you s’pose you could make mamma let me have a couple of patches —just little ones?” . “Patches! What under ths sun do you want with —” “Just on my knees,” insisted Bobby. “All the other fellers have patches, or holes. I’ve made holes myself in my knees, but It don’t do any good. Mama always goes and gets me a new pair of trousers. It makes you feel silly always to have a whole pair wheft all the other fellers have holes or patches.” He kicked his heels disconsolately against the stone wall. “You can’t have any fun when you’re different from all the other fellers,”, he added. “I suppose it does separate you from your kind," said Aunt Ellen, thoughtfully. “Perhaps we could persuade your mother between us if I stayed-to dinner and made a business of it. It strikes me as being an important issue.” Bobby looked puzzled. “It’s important to me,” he replied, solemnly, as he climbed down from the wall, took his aunt’s hand, and started with her back to the stone house. —Youth’s Companion.