Judge, 1913-08-30 · page 11 of 24
Judge — August 30, 1913 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous story-cartoon about a mischievous boy whose impulsive ambitions lead to disaster. The illustration shows the boy with a calf and dog, referencing his ill-fated attempt to imitate a blacksmith. The narrative describes a recurring pattern: the boy witnesses an adult profession (butcher, blacksmith, circus performer) and immediately tries to replicate it with dangerous results—injuring himself and others' animals. Each failed experiment costs his father money in doctor bills. The satire targets not the boy, but adults' assumption that environment shapes character. The story argues instead that certain boys are simply "eternal"—inherently reckless and ambitious regardless of circumstances. The humor lies in the escalating chaos: from attacking a cat, to torturing a borrowed calf, to attempting acrobatics, culminating in his father's old pipe becoming the next temptation. The joke is essentially about the universal, unchangeable nature of boyish mischief.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HIS BOY lived in a small town, where ambitions are few and far between; but he would have been just the same in the crowded marts of trade. Environment but retards The Eternal Boy By J. A, WALDRON hoof. A calf is not given to conver- sation, and its only method of dissent has been pregnant with surprise to unnumbered generations. They fished the Boy out of the well, a scant rod or inspires the Boy. This Boy happened at a slaughter house one day when his parents thought him at school. Immediately it was his ambi- tion to be a butcher. He experimented to this end for a min- ute and forty seconds with his ma’s bread knife and an able- bodied male cat owned by a neighboring spinster. The doctor said some of the Boy's wounds would leave no scars, but as to others he did not depose and asseverate. The ambition to be a butcher, however, had disappeared. Then the Boy saw a blacksmith shoeing a horse and was stirred to emulation. He borrowed a calf from a neighbor’s yard, tied it to the fence behind the smoke house with his mother's clothesline, and sought to get the animal’s left hind foot in the posture he had seen the blacksmith hold the horse's from the scene of his experiment, and by the light of lanterns found the calf three miles away in the woods just after midnight. No great ambition now stirred the Boy until he saw his first circus, whereupon he all at once tried to become a bareback rider, a tight-rope walker and an acrobat. The next quarter's bill rendered by the family physician—who always furnished his own splints, liniments and other professional paraphernalia —kept the Boy’s pa awake three nights. It was not long before the Boy was inspired by the great ambition of his life. The Boy’s pa got a new pipe one day and put his old one away to season. The potency of most old pipes needs qualification by leisure. This pipe was quite ripe when the Boy saw his opportunity. With his faithful little dog comicbooks.com