The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1890-11-06
BEING A BOY.
ills Troublesomo Disease, sb1t It is Not Kee..
essariIy Fatal.

ills Troublesome Disease, hit It Is Not Nee. .
essariIy Fatal
used to be boy once. but I seem
to have got over it, says writer In
the N. Y. Times. Boyhood is curl
GUS disease. but every man has to take
his dose Of 1t. 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 won ders
it he'could over have had anything so
bad as that. A boys troubles are
mental. He has strange notions Of
life, and they rattle him so that he
doesn't seem to get square with mat
tiers and things in the esuim alton Of
any disinterested observer. OF course,
the boy thinks he is having James
dandy time; but every one else knows
he is not.
For instance, a 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 rain spout, barking his shins
and SHINING his knuckles on the way,
and walks three miles across plowed
fields to steal a watermelon out of
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
90 the same old act all over again
day after tomorrow.
Again a boy thinks it's fun to put an
empty soap box on top of two logs,
and paddle himself up and down
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 boat, too. He will get aboard
big, heavy skiff, and pair of seven
loot oars. when the thermometers ndi-
Gates 900 in the summer house, and
he'll pull himself around and around
IN a ring, and cut SIS and figures 8 on
the water, and think he's having more
fun than a grand army man drawing
pension.
A boy thinks It's fun, too, to get four
old bricks and build himself an oven,
and then to make wood fire in it.
and roast fuur peachblow potatoes with
the skins on, and eat them without
salt. Two boys who can have unto
themselves a 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 a public dinner of
fifteen courses.
When boy gets over being q boy
and looks back over the period of his
disorder, he often wonders how it hap
pened that he lived through it. But it
appears to be pretty generally admit
ted by medical experts that the boy
hood disease is not necessary fatal. It
does away with few of its victims, to
be sure; but they are those who are
affected with the acute form in which
twenty-foot rivers appear three feet
deep, and double-barrel shot guns are
mistaken for Pandean pipes.
There is one form of the disease
which ought to prove fatal but, for
some inscrutable reason does not
That is the form which causes the
patient to imagine that jewsharps.
flies, banjoes and horse-iddles produce
music. Usually, however. they just
let the disease wear itself out 1t
wears great many people out, too;
but no matter.