PEDIATRICS Vol. 43 No. 4 April 1969, pp. 526
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THE PATIENT BOY—A POPULAR LESSON, READ TO CHILDREN IN THE 1820'S

T. E. C. Jr. M.D.

The story below depicts a favorite subject of those who wrote for children in the early days of our country. The inebriated father leading his family inexorably into destitution by his intemperance is counterbalanced by a son who holds the family together. During the last century many children cried over this and similar stories.

The Patient Boy

There was a journeyman bricklayer in this town, a good workman, but a very drunken idle fellow; he spent at the dram shop almost all he earned, and left his wife and children to take care of themselves; to get food and clothes as they could.

They might all have starved, but for the eldest son, whom his father had brought up to help him at his work; and who was so industrious and attentive, that being now at the age of thirteen or fourteen, he was able to earn pretty good wages, every penny of which that he could keep out of his father's hands, he brought to his mother.

When the brute of a father came home drunk, cursing and swearing, and in such an ill humour that his mother, and the rest of the children, durst not come near him for fear of a beating, this good lad (Tom was his name) kept close to him, to pacify him, and get him quietly to bed. His mother looked upon Tom as the support of the family, and loved him dearly.

It happened one day, Tom in climbing up a high ladder, with a load of mortar on his head, missed his hold, and fell down to the bottom, on a heap of bricks and rubbish.