Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1893-08-31

When I was q boy In the wflds of west
ern Indiana we used to say there were
three sorts Of fellows no decent boy ought
to stick up for. One was the boy who
slipped up ami hid our clothes or tied hard
knots In our breeches legs when we were
swimming In forbidden waters. 1t was
necessary to be lively in those days, and as
we wore nothing in the summer season
but hats, shirts and pantaloons, a boy
could dress in half a minute and in an
other half be in a thicket NOT penetrable
by a man. Another, detested character
was the boy who would pick a fight and
run and complain Il he got whipped. But
the arch criminal was the boy who owned
up when he didn't nave to. IL he stood
out awhile and the teacher wheled him,
we could forgive his telling. Well, these
savages have the same code. They have
been fighting among themselves to a Sc
rious extent, especially the Arabs, but be-
fore white judges or inquirers they are
mum.
Their alleged fun has an awkward re-
semblance to that of boys. Their women
act very much like little girls who are
anxious to play but half afraid to. And
some of their sports are very rude practi-
cal jokes, just as ours were some forty
years ago. In those days we had very lit
tie trouble about drying our hair when we
came out of the water in a hurry, for
thoughtful mothers usually kept it short
enough to keep other boys from putting
cockleburrs in it. well remember what
fun it was when a new boy anne to school,
from some neighboring center OF refine
ment, C~reencastle or Charlottesville, for
instance-a boy withlong curls, adeltcate-
Tipped and soft-skinned blonde of a hey.
How the fingers of our little ~reprobates
did itch to get into that hair, n how
they did rub it in" when they got there.
Now, I fancy that boys of eight or ten or
twelve are nothing but modified savages.
They quarrel and make up, roll over and
hug each other, fghto ne day and are good
friends the next, very much like those
wild people on the plaisance. But there
is one serious difference. While the boys
are only temporary savages these wild
folks are permanently grown up boys with
the passions OF men, and they hold malice
long time in two classes of cases. These
cases, of course, are such as pertain to
women and ~religion-the two subjects on
which half civilized people can get up the
biggest amount of mad in the shortest
HIT DO1s salSO nave ~ pTOlOunu dIcdti VI
authority, especially of the law. These
dark races haven't. Boys can be separate
ly examined and caught in a lie il they
have made up one. With these Arabs il
is more fun to beat the law than it was TO
do the original devilment. The result is
that white men put in control of them
nearly always adopt arbitrary methods in
little while. The Chinese, however, are
said to excel all other races in evading the
law and concealing what is lone among
themselves. They have got it down to an
exact science.
-
/ will not go so far as to say that this
Dahomeyan here is a man and a brother
Imay want to run for office some day-but
he acts so much like the boys of my time
did and as many of them, | fear, would
have continued to act if they had then
been turned loose, that / cannot but sym
pathize with him. The boy who is not in
actual pain and Is not hungry forms no
plans for the future, and lives entirely in
the present. It is just the same with these
blacks. In short, the childhood of the
man is a good type of the childhood of the
world. Turn a lot of boys loose In the
woods for a day and they invent very
much rs the savages did. They pass
through the "Stone Age" selecting the