Take It from Dad

by George Griswold Livermore

Doctor Boggs, who was a queer little scrap of a man, as quick tempered as gunpowder, plumped Ted down in a chair, and began to peer at his eyes through a magnifying glass. The more he looked, the more nervous Ted became. Finally, the doctor asked him if his eyes felt any better, and Ted allowed they did.

Then the doctor put a lot of charts up about twenty feet away, and asked Ted to read the letters on them, which he did so quickly the doctor couldn't change the charts fast enough. I grinned, for by then I was sure Ted was faking. Ted also realized that for a boy whose eyes had been causing him so much trouble, he'd been giving a remarkable exhibition so when Doctor Boggs began trying different glasses on him, Ted protested that he couldn't see a thing with any of them.

The doctor was very patient, trying on pair after pair, Ted groaning louder with each new one. At last, the old fellow stopped for a few minutes and rummaged around in a desk drawer where he kept a lot of his eyeglasses. Suddenly, he turned to Ted clapped a new pair on his nose, and stood back smiling sweetly at him.

"There my boy," he said, as sweet as honey. "Those are much better, aren't they!"

I took a look at Ted and almost choked. Then I realized what was coming to him, so I tried to pass him the high sign. It was too late.

"Those are the only ones I've been able to see through, doctor," Ted chirped innocently.

The next instant, the doctor with one word "Fraud!" grabbed Ted by an ear and marched him to the door, while father followed looking about as pleasant as a thunder storm.

You've probably guessed the reason why already. There was no glass in the last frames. After we got home, father and Ted retired to the woodshed and I heard the most heartrending sounds. When Ted returned to school his marks began to improve at once, and they kept on getting better and better until the end of the year, and since that day Ted has never had on a pair of glasses. It was one of the quickest and most complete cures of eye trouble ever recorded, and it also proved that old Doctor Boggs knew his job.

Faking is mighty poor business Ted, whether it's trying to establish an alibi for flunking your school exams, or making army shoes with paper soles for the government. The first is apt to get you into the habit of shirking your work, and the second is mighty likely to land you in jail. Some business men, not many, by faking the quality of their goods shoot up like a sky rocket, but when the time for repeat orders comes along, they come down like the stick, and if there's anything any more useless than the spent stick of a sky rocket, it's a man who tries to ease his way through life on alibis.

Do your best and stand by it. If it is your best, you have no cause to be ashamed no matter how it turns out, and remember that a man who never made a mistake never made anything.