FATHER TOOK ME SERIOUSLY
There was an interval of nearly five months between the time of my election, which was in May, and the date of taking office in September. I decided to use this time to improve my qualifications for the job. I returned to the old home town of Sharon and took a course in a business college. Again I walked the old familiar paths where as a boy I had roamed the woods, fished the streams, brought the cows along the dusty road from pasture and blacked the boots of the traveling dudes at the hotel.
There is a great thrill for the young man who comes home with a heart beating high with triumph, to see the love and admiration in his parents' eyes. Father shook my hand and said. "You're a good boy, Jimmy, and I'm proud of you. I always knew you'd make your mark.""I haven't made much of a mark, dad," I laughed. "City clerk isn't much. County recorder is what I'm aiming for." In fact, Ihad gone so far as to dream of being auditor of the state of Indiana.
A jolly old uncle who was there and who was looked on as the sage and wit of the Welsh settlement, began kidding me.
"From city clerk to county recorder is only a step, Jimmy," he said. "Next you'll be governor, and then president."Father took it seriously.
"You'll never be president, lad," he said, "because you wasn't born in this country." He seemed to think that was the only reason. He turned to my uncle and explained regretfully: "Of all my boys, only one has got the full American birthright. My youngest boy, Will, is the only one that can be president.""Well," said the jolly old uncle, "the rest of 'em can be government officers."Even this joke father took as a sober possibility. I saw then the full reason why he came to America. He wanted to give his boys boundless opportunities. A humble man himself, he had made all his sacrifices to broaden the chances for his children. This was a lesson to me. I could not repay him. I could only resolve to follow his example, to stand for a square deal for children everywhere.
Mother was as pleased with my humble success as was father.
When I sat down to the table she apologized for her cooking and said:
"After the fine food you have been eating in the big hotels, you will find our table pretty common.""You're wrong, mother," I said. "The best food I ever had I got right here at your table. You've never lived in boarding-houses, but father has. He knows that it's a rough life, and they don't feed you on delicacies. Hotel cookery is not like the cookery in the Old World. Over there they make each dish as tasty as they can, and good eating is one of the main objects in life. But Americans don't like to eat. They begrudge the time they have to spend at the table. They get it over as soon as they can. They seem to take it like medicine; the worse the medicine tastes, the better it is for them. An egg is something that is pretty hard to spoil in the cooking. Yet some of these boarding-house cooks are such masters of the art that they can fix up a plate of steak, eggs and potatoes and make them all as tasteless as a chip of wood. I've had this kind of fare for the last few years, and getting back to your table is the best part of home-coming."Father was still a puddler, and to show my appreciation of all he had done for me, I went into the mill every afternoon that summer and worked a heat or two for him while he went home and rested in the shade.
The workout did me good. It kept my body vigorous and cleared my brain so that my studies were easy for me, and I advanced with my education faster than ever before.
This proved to me that schooling should combine the book stuff with the shop work. Instead of interfering with each other, they help each other. The hand work makes the books seem more enjoyable.
