Boys' Column.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2082, 17 June 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Boys' Column.

The Old School-Books-

What pleasant memories cluster round these volumes old and worn, With covers smirched, and bindings creased and pages thumbed and torn 1 These are the books we used to con, I and poor brother Will, When we were boys together, in the schoolhouse on the hill. Well, I recall the nights at home, when side by side we sat Before the (ire. and o’er these books indulged in whispered chat, And how xylir-n father chided us for idling time away, Our eyes bent to the task as though they’d never been astray. The oid-time proverbs scribbled here, the caution to beware (“Steal not this book, my honest friend”) scrawled roughly here and there, The blur?, the blots, the luncheon spots, the numberless dog's ears, The faded names, the pictures, and, alas 1 the stairs of tears. All lake me back in mind to days when cloudless was the sky, When grief was so short-lived, I smiled before my tears were dry ; When, next to father’s angry frown, I feared the awful nod That doomed me, trembling, to advance and humbly kiss the rod. How bright those days 1 Our little cares, our momentary fears, And e’en our pains, evanished with a burst of sobs and tears, And-cvery joy seem great enough to balance all our woe ; What pity that when griefs are real, they can’t be balanced so I The school-house stands in ruins now, the boys have scattered wide ; A few are old and gray like me, bnt nearly all have died And brother Will is one of these ; bis curly head was laid Down by the brook, at father’s side, beneath the willows’ shade. These books so quaint and queer to you, to me arc living things ; Each tells a story of the past, amVeach a message brings. Whene'er I sit, at eventide, and turn their pages o’er, They seem to speak in tones that thrilled my heart in days of yore. The school-boy of to-day would laugh, and throw the old books by ; But, think you, neighbor, could his heart consent it he were I ?

Natural History.

East Lessons for New Beginners. the OWL. There are forty six different species of owls known to naturalists, but the principal occupation of each species is to run out at nights and scare school-ma’ams half to death by hooting. Such owls as can’t hoot are one horse birds which have to grub along the best way they can. They are like a boy with such a hard cold that he can’t holler. The owl is not particular what he eats, and would be warmly welcomed at the average boarding-house. He will eat chickens, rabbits, mice, quails, berries, seeds, and almost anything else good to fill up on, and is called the emblem of wisdom because he can look around the corner of the corn crib and see a farmer’s son waiting there with an old shot-gun to welcome him. While the bird is harmless, many a young man who is coming home from seeing his Mary Jane has struck a 2:20 clip on heaving the solemn “ Too-hoo I’’ above his head, and hasn't stopped shaking for an hour after getting home. The owl is said to live for half a century, but what particular good it does him is more than anybody can tell. THE WASP. The wasp is found in most all countries, but seems to have more business on his mind in North America than anywhere else. He keeps both standard and polar time, and is always ready to (ill an engagement by either. Ho doesn’t cave so much about what ho eats, but he is very domestic and must have a home. This is generally located under the eaves of a building insured for its full value, though it sometimes hangs from the limb of a tree or bush. As no wasp expects to live to see the new year come in he doesn’t break Ins back to lay in a store of pork and potatoes, and it makes no difference to him whether coal goes up or down. He spends the time from May to October in sloshing around, attending country fairs, horse races and wrestling matches, and having more or less to do in the harvest field and around cider mills. It is a disputed point whether the wasp can bite harder than a bull dog, but the weight of opinion is in favor of the wasp. He seems to be mad about something all the time, and it doesn’t make any difference whether Ida victim is the babe in the cradle or the father in the barnyard. Five months is the average life of a wasp, and he is heard from about as often as any other insect on the programme.

TUI’, r.EAII. There arc several species of the bear—polar, grizzly, cinnamon, black, brown, etc., but each and every one of them is built on the same scientific principle, and all have the hugging attachment, The polar hoar is white in color. Nature made him so in order that Arctic explorers couldn’t tell him from a snow drift until it was too late to rectify the mistake. The brown and black bears are often mistaken for calves out on a lark, but the same man never makes this mistake twice. The cinnamon bear has a great fondness for cinnamon, but if he can’t got it will take up with most any sort of hunter. The greatest danger in approaching a grizzly hear is the fear that your wingswou’t grow out fast enough to enable you to srot away in time. While all bears can climb most of thorn prefer to make the other party do the climbing. They are very social among themselves, but rather exclusive as to their society. It is said that a grizzly bear can'kill an ox with one blow of his paw, but John L, Sullivan can do the same thing if you have an ox you want to get rid of. Thu black bear is the most common in the United States and Canada, hut he is gutting pretty well discouraged, and it is only a question of time when ho will wish he was somebody else.