“Better Give Them to Some Poor Boy”
Just because a man has to be supported as a public charge by the town he lives in, is no reason why he should not have some definite ideas about correct dress.
“Uncle Timmy” may have seen better days, but it was so far back in his history that no one remembered anything about it. He was supplied with board in a private family at the town’s expense, the poor master incidentally providing two other urgent necessities, viz., wearing apparel and chewing tobacco, the latter being purchased in quantity and “doled out” to Uncle Timmy little at a time, as otherwise the expense of this luxury would have reached a very large item in the course of a year.
About once in so often Uncle Timmy would happen around to see the poor master to talk things over. He was very sociable indeed and would go into all the details as to the menu at his boarding place, which was very seldom satisfactory.
One day Uncle Timmy appeared, and after he had given a report of how he was enjoying his present boarding place, it occurred to the poor master that a certain pair of misfit shoes, which were of no special value to anyone, might be utilized by this long-time guest of the community. So he brought out the shoes and suggested that Uncle Timmy take them home with him.
The old man turned the shoes over and over and examined them carefully. When it was suggested that he try them on, as apparently they would fit him, he shook his head.
“No,” said he. “I guess I won’t take them. You better give them to some poor boy.”
There is no doubt that Uncle Timmy was naturally an aristocrat.
CHAPTER IV
Family Characteristics and Small Town Life
Those sections of rural New England which have possessed natural advantages sufficient to restrain the young people from their common propensity to emigrate to the cities or to the western states, are rich in family legends which show that frequent persistence of family traits which is exceptionally pronounced in the six little states of the northeast.
A well-known family had occupied a prominent position in a certain New England town for several generations. During all this period certain pronounced characteristics had afforded amusement to the people of the community, especially those of the father and daughter whose mental processes are illustrated by the following narratives.