Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 267, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1916 — IN GLORIOUS YOUTH [ARTICLE]

IN GLORIOUS YOUTH

THE BOY AT AN AGE HE LOOKS'" BACK TO WITH REGRET. When He Balke at Cutting Braes' and Takea Himself and Hia Future in the Most Serious Fashion. He has Just arrived at that age when nobody understands him. His father wants him to learn a good trade, like carpentry or automobile repairing, but he has fully decided that he is going to be either a corporation lawyer or an actor, preferably a moving picture actor. He understands vaguely that a corporation Is a business organization, and he is not much interested In law, but he has heard his father speak admiringly of a corporation lawyer and ( praise his keenness, and he thinks it would be rather nice to be spoken of in that way. Also he has heard It said that a corporation lawyer must possess a quick Intellect and a profound understanding of human nature, and he believes he possesses both. For similar reasons he inclines toward the actors’ profession. An actor does not have much w’ork to do, and he has heard of some who earn a thousand dollars a week. Moreover, actors are much admired —he admires one or two that he has seen at the corner theater himself —and there are other attractions which secretly influence him, such as beautiful actresses, although he would never admit this even to himself.

He has supreme confidence In his en* tire fitness for either profession and cannot understand why his father does 1 not encourage his ambitions, says a> writer in the Indianapolis News. He secretly believes that his parent is of rather inferior Intellect, else he would have a better job and would be able to understand his son and properly gauge his abilities. Of late he has begun to bulk at cutting the grass. He says the sun makes him sick, but the real reason is that he thinks cutting the grass Incompatible with the dignity of a future man of fame. His mother found him one day In the attic waving an old sword and charging an Imaginary enemy, then straightening his naturally stooped shoulders and falling backward with his hand on his heart shouting all the while in his queer voice, which at the present time is wavering between a coarse, bull-like bass and a thin squeak. He seldom loses sight of the fact that he Is going to be either a corporation lawyer or an actor, and is continually rehearsing for one profession or the other. When he walks he endeavors to imitate the debonair grace of his favorite motion-picture hero and he Is constantly testing his powers of cross-examination on his boy companions. They, for the most part, take him at his own valuation and listen respectfully when he orates on any subject from baseball to politics, of both of which he thinks he has a thorough grasp. He wears his hair long, objects strenuously and sometimes tearfully when ordered to have It cut, and Is in a fever of uncertainty as to whether It Is more becoming to part it In the middle or on the side. His ties and socks are very loud and his trousers extremely narrow and short. He talks loudly and with the utmost assurance on all questions when anybody will listen to him. The only thing in the world he cannot un-» deratand is why his father, and, occasionally even his mother, smile at him when he is talking most seriously. But he fully understands that he is misunderstood.