isa-normaladvance-1903-00066

Description:	66THE NORMAL ADVANCE.L. A. and A. A. Lovers.Not far from the city there nestles in a grove ofmaples, a little brick school house. Leading fromthe road to the school yard you will find still theold-fashioned stile of a generation ago. On therailing of this stile is carefully carved this:L. A. and A. A. Lovers.As you dismount from your wheel for a rest inthe shade, and your eyes fall upon those letters,you involuntarily link fancy into fancy till youhave woven a nice little romance. Those innocentletters told me their story thus:School has begun the boys and girls have lostonce more the wanton freedom of the birds andthe summer again they are made to feel thatlife has its straight and narrow way. With faithful eye and pencil, but with truant fancy, theyonce again endeavor to tread the wearisome pathof knowledge.In one corner of that school room sits a boy.His bare feet scarcely more than reach the floor but all the happier, for they may swing anddangle, a remnant of the lost freedom of summerand an escape valve for repressed energy. Justacross the aisle sits a little white headed girl, anew comer. After a day or two the danglingfooted boy begins to forget his chigger bites andhis stubbed toe his thoughts are turning towardhigher and holier things.. He would not dareboldly and deliberately to look across that aisle,such action would be sacrilege. Only in his mostsecret thoughts does he dare cross it.That evening as he trudged down the lane tobring up the cows, he plucked a marguerite. Ithad never been other than a weed to him, but thisevening it possessed a strange new beauty. Shehad one in her hand today. So he placed it in hisbutton-hole and felt foolish. But he was carefulto throw it away before he reached the house. . Heplucked a head of thistle down, and blew it justthree times. Not a feather of down remained. Agood sign! Of what ? He could not tell.While finishing up his chores he saw al star fall,and he made a wish. She was in the wish in somevague, Undefined, intangible way. If his wish hadsuddenly come true he would not have recognizedit. As he threw his arm full of wood behind thekitchen stove, he firmly resolved to become a greatman, as great maybe as Buffalo Bill. Why?Well, that she might—might what? He knewnot. Ah how few, older than he, wish success,wish fame, for self alone. They may not havedefined their motives even to themselves, but downdeep among the many is one that somebody maybe pleased with the success, the fame, and mayshare it.All the evening he was abstracted and preoccupied. Try to direct his mind as he would, yet,not within the circle of his thoughts, but on theouter verge where consciousness paints her dimand uncontrolled pictures, a little white headwould bob vaguely, and a little snubbed nosewould profile itself. He was trying to think ofhis work, but the little head and nose were there.He was intent on his supper, but the face lookedout from his tea cup, and the nose profiled itselfon his cooky. He sat with his feet in the bucketof cold water unusually long, surprisingly long,long without a precedent. Was he thinking ? No,Thinking is an effort his mind was simply adriftamid the random pictures on the suburbs of hisconsciousness. Ever and again amid those pictures would occur the little white head and thesnubbed nose. The last thing before closing hiseyes he named the bed posts. True, he was not ina strange bed, but it was the only charm that occurred to him just then, so he would try it.He ate his breakfast in a reverie, then groomedhimself carefully without the usual maternal admonition. It was not necessary for him to produce the towel as evidence of his ablutions, socarefully were they done. At school when shecame near him, he blushed and he was sure thatthe world saw it, though it scarcely subdued thefreckles. He felt that every one on the school
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/33815
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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