Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1890-11-13
BEING A BOY.
II Is . Troublesome Disease, but Not Neccs.
sarily Fatal.

sarily Fatal.
l used to be boy once, but | secm
to have got over it. Boyhood is a
curious disease. but every man has to
take his dose OF it. He does not mind
it at the time; but when his complete
cure has been effected, he looks back
over the period of the attack. and
wonders il he could ever have had
anything SO bad as that A boys
troubles are mental. lie has strange
notions OF life, and they rattle him so
he doesn't seem to get square with
matters and things in the estimation OF
any disinterested observer. OF course.
the BOY thinks he Is having James,
dandy time; but everybody else knows
he is not.
For instance. boy thinks it is real
good fun to go to bed with all his
clothes on. and lie awake for three
hours till the old man has swallowed
his sleep-coaXer and sought his downy
perch. Then the boy gets out Of bed,
climbs out OF the back window and
down a rain spout. barking his shins
and SHINING his knuckles on the way,
and walks three miles across plowed
fields to steal watermelon out of a
farmers patch. And the next day,
when they have watermelon for dinner
at home, do you suppose that makes
the boy feel sore. as it would man?
Not much. The boy has had his fun,
and the chances are that he'll get up
and do the same act all over again day
after tomorrow.
Again, Il boy thinks it's fun to put
an empty soap box on top of two logs.
and paddle himself up and down a
brook where there are no lighthouses.
no harbors. and not more than twelve
inches of water, counting the mud on
the bottom. A boy thinks it's fun to
row u boat, too. He will get aboard
big, heavy skiff. with a pair of
| seven-foot oars, when the thermometer
indicates 80 degrees in the summer
house, and he'll pull himself around
and around in ring, and cut SIS and
| figures 3 on the water, and think he's
having more fun than Grand Army
man drawing pension.
A boy thinks it's fun, too, to &c I
four old bricks and build himself an
| oven, and then to make a wood-fire in
| it. and roast four peachblow potatoes
with skins on, and eat them without
salt. Two boys who can have unto
themselves small feast like this, ac-
companied by edifying conversation
about the determination Of the Sioux,
think they're having more fun than
you or would at public dinner OF
| fifteen courses
When a boy gets over being boy
and looks back over the period OF his
disorder, he often wonders how i,
happened that he lived through it.
But it appears to be pretty generally
admitted by medical experts that the
boyhOOd disc use is not necessarily
fatal. 1t does do away with few oil
its victims, to be sure; but they are
those who are affected with the acute
form in which twenty foot rivers ap
pear three feet deep. and double bar
relied shot-guns are mistaken for Pan
dean pipes.
There is one form of the disease
which ought to prove fatal, but for
some inscrutable reason does not
| That h., oh h.
patient to imagine that jewsharps
tifes. banjos and horse-fddles produce
music. Usually, however. they just
let the disease wear itself out Il
wears great many people out, too
but no matter.-Puck.