“Bowser on Washington; He Writes An Essay and Mrs. Bowser Likes It,”
from the Jackson County Journal,
Sylva, N.C., Feb. 14, 1918. President’s Day is celebrated Monday, February 19,
this year, but we used to celebrate Washington’s birthday, Feb. 22, and
Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12.
For three evenings Mr. Bowser had come up from dinner to go
straight into the library and lock the door and pass a couple of hours. Mrs.
Bowser had not questioned his rather strange behavior, but had contented
herself with putting her ear to the door now and then to find out that he had
not died of heart disease and fallen out of his chair. She heard his pen
scratching over paper and him muttering to himself, and she was contented to
wait her time.
It came on the third evening. After an hour’s seclusion he
came out, a look of satisfaction on his face, and observed:
“I am now ready to tell you what I have been doing. There is
a club here in the city called ‘The Washington Dodos’. A man named Philbrick,
whom I know, is going to join. It is a rule of the club that everyone who joins
shall deliver an essay on George Washington. Philbrick is no hand at the pen,
and he came to me the other day and offered me fifty dollars if I would write
him an essay. I thought I would give you the fifty dollars.
“I have just finished it and am going to read it and ask
your opinion. I commence by saying:
“George Washington was a fine boy. He obeyed everything his
father and mother told him to. He never tore his little trousers; he never lost
his little cap; he never made faces at his father’s hired hand. He never
climbed trees, and snapped the buttons off his clothes. He rolled on the grace
once in a while, as boys will, but he always rolled very gently, and he didn’t
even muss up his hair, nor get grasshoppers in his little hind pockets.”
“How is that for a beginning, Mrs. Bowser?”
“Why—why,” she answered, “you have gone back farther than
any historian.”
“I intend to,” he smile din a sort of superior way. “Here is
some more of it:
“As a boy, George Washington never had the colic. He dodged
the measles and the whooping cough. He was kind to all living animals, and, if
he found a crow with a broken wing, he brought it home and nursed it until
well. All the crows for fifty miles around got to love him, and they would call
out his name whenever they caught sight of him.”
“Well, Mrs. Bowser, is it getting interesting to you?” was
asked.
“You have certainly struck some things which will astonish
the hearer,” she answered with her hand over her mouth. “Where did you get all
these facts from?”
“We will not mind that, my dear. Philbrick wanted something
original and I think I have given it to him. We will now go ahead again.
“It is said that little George never told a lie. This is a
mistake. He told three or four every day, and some awful whoppers, but he lied
as gently as he could, and there was no sin in his heart when he lied. His
father had a favorite plum tree. It was a favorite because it never bore over a
dozen plums at once, and because every plum was wormy. One day a slave on his
father’s plantation had his ears cuffed for some impudence, and he seized the ax
and when out and cut that plum tree down for revenge. Little George saw him do
it, but he was not a boy to go and blab everything out. When his old man missed
the tree, and demanded to know who had cut it down, what did little George do?
He spoke right up and claimed that he cut it down with his little hatchet to
see if the hatchet had an edge on it. His father was going to give him the
darndest licking a boy ever got, but, the fact that little George had told the
truth, when he could have lied just as well as not, appealed to the parent. He
took his son in his arms, and forgave him, and told him he that he would buy
him a dozen more hatchets, and he could cut down every tree around the house.”
“Now, then, Mrs. Bowser, what is your opinion of that? Does
it hit you or not?”
“Yes it hits me,” replied Mrs. Bowser, stooping her head
under the table to laugh to herself. “Why, Mr. Bowser, you have dug up
something entirely new.”
“Thank you, dear—thank you. That was my object—to get
something entirely new. I go on:
“Little George was to be a great man, but his father
couldn’t see any signs of it, nor did his mother expect anything. He ate his
pudding and milk for supper just like other boys, and he always knelt down by
his bedside and prayed before he worked his way between the sheets. Nothing
occurred to show that greatness was sleeping in his character until he was
sixteen years old. Then a bear killed one of his father’s sheep, and he was
bemoaning the loss of the old wooly, when the son spoke up and said:
“Father, I will kill that bear for you. He has done a very
wicked thing and should be punished for it.”
“But you are only a boy,” said the father.
“I know it, papa, but I feel a greatness within. Let me take
your old shotgun and I will load it with a handful of peach stones and bring
you back the scalp of that bear, or I will perish in attempting to do so!”
“And the father consented, and little George took the old
musket out and became great in an hour. He saw the bear and discharged a load
of peach stones at him, and he not only ended the life of Bruin, but killed
seven sheep at the same discharge. He brought all the scalps to his father, and
the overjoyed parent took him into the house and said:
“I surely have a great son in this, my little George. Keep
on, my son, and you will be known of all the world.”
“Now, Mrs. Bowser,” said Mr. Bowser, as he straightened up.
“This is only a small part of the essay, but you can judge by this what the
whole is. Is it not an interesting paper?”
“It seems—seems to be,” she replied. “But would you call it
history?”
“It is the straightest kind of history. But are you
satisfied with it?”
“Y-yes. But, of course—“
“Of course what!” demanded Mr. Bowser. “I might have known
you would find some fault about it.
What is wrong?”
“N-nothing,” she replied. “It is in some respects the
greatest essay on Washington I ever heard.”
Mr. Bowser when to the telephone and called up Mr. Philbrick
and told him t come to the office the next morning and get his essay. Mr.
Philbrick came, but he did not take the essay away with him. Instead of that,
he hurt Mr. Bowser’s feelings by calling him an old jackass, or some such name.
Mrs. Bowser has not got that fifty dollars yet, and she has
no hopes that she ever will get it.
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