Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

RHYS LEWIS.
" And who's your * gaflfer,' pray P "
" The old hand, you know — my father," replied Will.
"Will," said my mother, severely, "I charge you not to
call your father ' gaffer ' and ' old hand ' again. I never, in my
life, knew good to come of children who called their father
and mother 'him yonder' and ' her yonder,' or 'the old hand
yonder' and ' the old woman yonder.' Don't you let me hear
you call your father by any such stupid names again, you mind,
now."
"All right," said Will. " Next time I shall call him Hugh
Bryan, Esquire, General Grocer and Provision Dealer, Baker to
his Royal Highness the Old Scraper, and ."
Before he could finish his story he had to bolt, mother after
him, weapon in hand. For all his mischievousness mother was
never angry with him. "He's a rough 'un, that boy," she
would often saj'. "If he got grace, he'd make a capital preacher."
A remark of this kind made me a little jealous. She never told
me I would make a preacher, although that had become the
chief desire of my life by this time, and I knew Will Bryan
never intended to be one.
I do not thick mother regarded Will as anything worse than
a mischief-loving lad, until he began brushing up his hair from
his forehead, or, as it was then called, "making a Q,. P." When
she saw a white parting upon Will's head, and signs that ho
oiled his hair, his fate was sealed for ever. It troubled me much
to think my mother should take this innovation so seriously,
because I thought Will looked splendidly in his " Q,. P," and I
longed for permission to imitate him. I was quite tired of my
mother's fashion of cutting my hair, which was to clap a large
butter-basin upon my head, and shear around the edges until
my head looked for all the world like a haycock newly thatched.
I saw there was no hope of improvement upon this method;
especially in the light of the following observations, made by
my mother to Will Bryan, directly she saw his " Q. P.": —
" Will, my son, I used to think you a good lad, for all your
foolishness. But I see the devil has found the weak spot iu
you, too."