The Arkansaw traveler., 1883-11-03
THE CODE OF THE BOYS
K. l. Burdeile. Tn Exchange

When you see a boy coming down the street with a ball of cord in his hands and look on his serious face like that worn by the picture of an early Christian father standing in the arena waiting fo, the new lion to be called to dinner. i, is sign that if you just cast your eyes up. ward you can see the boys kite dancine nimbly Tn the air to the lascivious pleas ing ot whole colony of telephone wires
 When you see boy going along in the merry, merry sunshine with his ha; Tn hls hand, shaking his hair wRh a pine stick to get ii dry, now and then leanine his head on one side, pounding the o,her side with hls hands and practically kick ing his feet in the air. in desperate etfor:s te get the water out of his ears or when you see him holding warm stone to his ear tor the same purpose. t IS d true sign tha, you may think of that boy, bv and by, standing speeches. when his mother asks him how his shirt came to be wrong side out. You must no, run down the street in the direction of his home under the impression that the boy IS being murdered. You can't kill a boy with skate strap. And in hoo sienoes you @ill know that boy has been swim nlng when he should have been a, school, learning that twen,y-six proposi- uons are followed by the accusative. all the way from ad 10 ultra.
 " When you see boy abou, ,.4S D. m. with ink on his nose and the grime of chalk on his hands. his hair dishevel!ed and the two upper buttons of his lacke, gone, his collar rumpled, and his neck ,e twisted awry. and suspicious-lookins flush and two or three scratches adornins his face, you will know that he was kep in after school, and was taun,ed for the same by another boy when he came out. and If you want 10 know the rest of II. |, will not be necessary to go into particu- lars, but just ask him which whipped = If joyous look of triumph dances in the eNultant eyes you will know that lus, around the corner you can find a boy wi;h bleeding nose and generally de- moralized facade. Bu, if the lad you question looks downcast multis nun lachymis begins his oration. like Diva,i- GUS. by saying: Well. he was a grea, deal blgger'n me- you may know thai your boy got iicked'
 When you see a boy with the pockets of his pantaloons bulging out until he looks like great bumble-bee. laden for the hive. while he walks along, trying ts look as thin as split lath and wearing a profound expression of supernatural in nocenee. you know wi,hou, referring to this code of signals tha, boy has been lingering in somebody's orchard and doesn't care 10 have undue publicity gwen to facts that only concern himself personally.
 When you see boy on the dis,an, hillside suddenly leap up into the soi, summer air. holding one bare foot ten derly but firmly in the welded fingers of both hands while he hops around in ir- regular but excited orbits, at the same time voicing his grief with wailing shiieks mellowed by the sunny distance. then, without going to the telephone you may know that barefooted boy has irod upon the busy bee that nestled in the perfumed clover
 And wherever and whenever you see hin, n mischief or out of it-iha, Is. just coming GU, of il. or just ready 10 ge, into some more; awfully%bad. or with many fearful failures and disgraceful s,umbles, trying to be good forgetting your com mandments which thunder upon him by the hundred. well nigh as readily and re- peatedly as you forget the ten tha, infinite wisdom has laid upon you; in all his noise, his poor little struggles, temp,a. tionS triumphs and failures, his pitesus little troubles and his fearful honest pa- tience, in all the lightness of boys life. your heart must grow mellow and tender for the little germ of manhood, 90 full of wonderful possibilities, SO rich with seeds of strength that will npen by and by, for good or for evil, as you walk and live be- tore the boy: even as you look at him re- member what you were thirty or forty years ago, and say: God bless the