---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 21
number: 8
published: 1918-06
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, "Two Boys and a Cigarette," *Improvement Era* 21, no. 8 (June 1918): 686.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2108unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2108unse
start_page: 686
end_page: 686
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-06)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2108unse
  publication_year: 1918
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Two Boys and a Cigarette

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686                     IMPROVEMENT ERA

once resided in the centers of Europe. This ideal calls for a
resurrection of the teaching profession to the point where it will
command greater respect and greater confidence.
   Learning must be put to work. To accomplish this the
learned must be a good workman. Learning must deal, even
more than now, with realities and not whimsicalities. Learning
can well afford to lose much of its polish and politeness (although this is not necessary) if it can assume more rough commonplaceness and adaptability. And in such assumption it will
lose none of its great dignity because the greatest dignity comes
from achievement. The learned must not only have the potential power of mind and spirit, as now; they must turn the
wheels.   Honor will seek them out.
Logan, Utah

                 Two Boys and a Cigarette
                             (Selected)

      Two bright little fellows, named Harry and Will,
      Were just the same age and the same size, until
      One day in their travels it chanced that they met
      A queer little creature, surnamed Cigarette.
      This queer little creature made friends with the boys,
      And told them a story of masculine joys
      He held for their sharing. "I tell you," quoth he,
      "The way to be manly and big is through me."
      Will listened and yielded but Harry held out.
                               ;

      "I think your assertions are open to doubt,"
      He said, "and besides, I'm afraid I'd be sick."
      "Afraid!" echoed Will, "Oh, you cowardly stick!
      Well, I'm not afraid, look a here!" As he spoke
      He blew out a halo of cigarette smokjs.

      Five years from that meeting saw them again.
      The time had arrived when they both should be men,
      But strangely enough, although Harry boy stood
      As tall and as strong as a tree in the. wood,
      Poor Will seemed a dwarf; sunken eye, hollow cheek,
      Stoop shoulders, proclaimed him unmanly and weak.
      With thumb and forefinger he listlessly rolled
      A cigarette, smoothing each wrinkle and fold,
      And the smoke that he puffed from his lips, I declare
      Took the form of a demon, and grinned from the air.
      And it said: "See that wreck of a man that I made
      Of the boastful young fellow who wasn't afraid."
                                             Ella   Wheeler Wilcox