Connecticut western news., 1884-11-19
TALKS WITH THE BOYS.
OUT or AN EVENING TO HAVE SOME
 FUN.
Which Have the Most Fun, the Bad or the
 Good Boyss
BY M. QUAD.

boy to become apreacher."
 And it seems to me, on the contrary, that don't want over one in thousand to become preachers. ] want the aver age boy to be full of life and spirits; l want him 10 find amusement and inter est every day; I want him, in fact, to have all the fun he can hold and remain boy as long as he can.
 But I want him to exercise sense and reason at the same time.
 Come now, my lad, I'll be boy with you this evening and we'll go out and have what you call 'fun." How will we get outP Father doesn't want us racing around evenings, and mother is decided ly opposed to it, and we must invent some excuse. Right here we have to practice a mean deception. if not tell lie. We want to see sschoolmate about something, or we borrowed something and must return it, or any other excuse that seems reasonable but is at the same time no better than lying. You can tell by mothers face that she doesn't entirely believe it, but she lets us go, and in ten minutes we join two other boys who have been through the same mill.
 Now, then, for the fun. It isn't funny to sit down on log and tell stories, nor to walk up and down the streets, nor stand and rub 0 brick wall with our backs. We have to make some decided move. Let's stretch piece of clothes line across the sidewalk in this dark spot, never dreaming that Q woman or an old man may get fall to render them cripples for life. After that we'll go the length of this side street and carry of every front gate which eau be lifted of its hinges. It ought to be awfully funny to steal neighbor's gate and leave his lawn and garden open to damage from stray animals, but after it has been ac. complished We are not half as tickled as we thought to be.
 A citizen, who is about to build, has piled up some choice lumber. Let's throw the pile down It will make him half days work, and probably damage some of the boards, but we'll call it fun. Here's the cottage of the Widow Wat kins. We all know that she is dread fully afraid of robbers, and so we slip into the yard. tap on the windows, rat tie on the doors, and frighten her until we are certain that she will get no sleep that night. Here. in the alley, is wagon belonging to teamster; we'llrun it of half a mile and leave it behind lumber-yard. He'll want it at sharp ' n the morning, and it will be fun to see him hunting the town over and losing his wages for half day.
 A merchant has dozen barrels of salt on the platform in front of his store. 4 kick or two loosens the strip which holds them in place, and they go rolling into the street. Two of them burst open and scatter their contents, and it is only after we have left the neighborhood that the idea of danger to passing vehicles occurs to anybody. Let the wheel of passing wagon or buggy strike one of these bar rels, and there will be an accident and perhaps loss of life. Here's a garden full of vegetables. Pull up twenty five or thirty heads of cabbage and stack them in a pile, and cut open a dozen or so squashes, and old White will be astonished when he comes out in the morning. We had anticipated a big laugh over it, but somehow, after the work has been accomplished, not a grin visible on any countenance. Deacon Smith has a lot of choice grapes on Q rack almost under his bedroom window. It will be huge joke to steal them to the last bunch. Every boy crawls for ward on his stomach, imagining himself a Pawnee Indian on the war path, and a good share of the grapes are plucked and carried away. Awful smart, isn't 1t We call it ''cooning," but the Dea- con loses the grapes. just the same as if they had been taker by a professional thief.
 It is now time to go home. Somehow when we separate from the others no one says anything about having had heap of fun. We have to enter the house and run the gauntlet of father and mother, and If questioned too closely we must tell half dozen lies and go to bed with them. on our conscience. Come, now, we've been ont together and let me ask you how you like it :? I've been there as a boy, and I know that I got up next morning ashamed to look any one in the face. What seemed like sport few hours before now looked like contemptible work. Ninety times out of hundred the boy who goes out nights for fun finds it in the manner I have described. don't say that all such boys will grow to be bad men, but they are beginning life after wrong and dangerous ideas.
 Now, then, come and spend the next evening with me, and I'll take thirty years off my life and be boy with you. We'll arrange the magic lantern and have show of our own-almittance free-children in arms not wanted on the front seats. After the show we'll have three or four games of checkers. Then we'll get out the target and toy pistol and put in half an hour. Then, if you will, we'll put our heads together and work out two or three puzzles. After that I'll bring in piece of cotton line, and we'll see how many different knots we can tie.
 Along about this time pop corn and apples aud sweet cider ought to come in, and when they are finished we'll devote quarter of an hour to asking and answering questions, something as | follows: