Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1899 — HE WAS NAMED HAROLD. [ARTICLE]

HE WAS NAMED HAROLD.

VM Mother, However, Wm Shock* at 22ig Hlclbuum* “Whereas the boy?” inquired Mr. Spadina, cheerily, and it occurred'to him that it vu about time for bis seven-year-old son to bid him good night “The boy,” replied 'Mrs. Spadina, severely, “is in bed.” “Not sick?” “No, be is not sick,” mid Mrs, Spadina, in a tone that implied something even worse. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to tell you all about it, but have not had a chance until now. It means just this—that we must move away from this neighborhood. It’a no place to bring np a boy, and I just won’t stand it. We must get a house in some part of the city where Harold will have nice children to play with.” “But what’s the matter?” asked the husband, with concern. “What has happened?” “Well, I’m telling you just as fast as I can. This afternoon Harold had jost got home from school when the doorbell rang. I was in the hall and answered the door myself, for I saw a boy there. On opening the door the boy said to me: Tlease, can Mike come out and play ball?’ I told him that we had no Mike here, and said that he had called at the wrong house. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I mean Mike, you know —your boy, Mike. I guess you call him Harold,’ be said.

“Now, what do you think of that? Well, you may be sure I told that boy what I thought of him, and he began to whimper and said that Harold had licked him—that’s just what he said —Harold had licked him yesterday for not calling him Mike, and everybody called him Mike at school. And it’s worse than that, for they call him Mike Spad—not Harold Spadina, but Mike Spad.” “Well, upon my word!” exclaimed Mr. Spadina. “I marched ont into the diningroom, where Harold was eating some bread and butter,” continued Mrs. Spadina, “and I went for him, and do you know that child sat up in his chair and said that he’d rather be called Mike than Harold, and that since his chuma had started 4 to call him Mike Spad the other gang’s afraid of him. Well, I just sent him off to bed at five o’clock, and be’6 there yet. Mike Spad!” she added, with intense feeling on each repulsive word. “The little scamp!” exclaimed Mr. Spadina. “We have been talking of getting a better house in 6ome other part of toe city for a long time,” said Mrs. Spadina, “and I’m sick and fired of this place. We can’t send him over to that school any longer, with bis rowdy names and its gangs and its fighting. Harold has clearly been fighting, for the boy said as much.” The father was looking silently at the ceiling and puffing at his evening cigar. He generally thought matters over before giving his decision, and; Mrs. Spadina cautiously went up- j stairs, where she found the formidable Mike Spad sound asleep and with the clothing kicked off him. And Mr. Spadina blew a whiff from his cigar and said: “At school they used to call me Bump.” And presently he smiled, and, knocking the ash off bis cigar, he chuckled: “There’s good stuff in Mike. I wonder how big the boy was that he walloped?” I And the important point is that of j the son, the mother and the father,' one was as true to human nature as j either of the others.—Toronto Satar- i day Night.