You can tell him wherever you see him. There are certain marks or
appearances which he carries about with him and which are never absent.
For one thing you will find him with a cigarette stuck in his mouth, and
a cigarette is one of the deadliest poisons in the world for boy or man.
He wears his hat on the side or cocked back on his head. Frequently he
stuffs both hands in his trousers’ pockets. He doesn’t attend school
regularly; sometimes he starts for school and ends at the bathing pond
or the baseball park. He is late at Sunday school, if he goes at all,
and he stands ’round on the outside at church while the service is going
on inside. He steals rides on trains and on trolley cars, and on passing
vehicles of all descriptions. He is saucy and impudent to older people,
and is always ready and willing to quarrel or fight with his mates. He
is what the boys call a “bully.”
The loud girl and the rowdy boy are two things of which we have seen
enough in this world. They are things; they are hardly worth the dignity
of being called human beings.
I saw one of these rowdy boys in his own home not a great while ago. His
mother said to him:
“Johnnie, you must always take off your hat whenever you come into the
house.”
“Good gracious alive,” he said, “I can’t do anything right. What is the
use of grabbing off your hat every time you come into your own house?”
[Illustration: HE STUFFED BOTH HANDS IN HIS TROUSERS’ POCKET.]
His mother looked sad, but said nothing. Presently she discovered that
her little boy had brought some mud into the house on his shoes. In her
sweetest tones she said:
“Johnnie, you must go to the door and wipe your feet now. See how you
are tracking up the floor there!”
“Well,” said the rowdy boy with a snarl, “can’t the old floor be
scoured? You must think this old house is gold.”
Now, I am a preacher, boys, and, being a preacher, of course I am what
is called a “man of peace,” but I tell you that that was one time I came
pretty near wishing that I wasn’t a preacher so that I might have given
that boy what he deserved. I was sorry, for the time being, that he
wasn’t my son. No manly little boy will ever talk to his mother in any
such way. I suppose that boy thought it made him appear to be a very
important personage, but he was very much mistaken. Don’t be rowdy,
boys; don’t be rough; don’t be rude. You were made for better things.