The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-11-12
Will Whites Boys
His New Book "The
Court of BoyviIIe.


peached and that the man who reads
them will leave them mentally freshened
and reiuvenated.
Doubleday &c Mcclure have issued q
very handsome volume of these stories
under the title of 1.-The Court of Boy
VILE" These stories follow Whites first
boy story, 1.-The King of Boyville." These
boys are Kansas boys. They are FL Do
RADIO boys. They are Wichita boys, Win
field, Wellington, Arkansas City boys
You pass them every day. You recog-
nize them as similar to yourself when
you was their age. But you are busy
and there is merely in your mind this
broad, non-particular generalization OF
! them
Now the virtue, and it is a golden vir-
| tue, of Whites stories, is that it dwarfs
you instantly to the boys size and en-
larges your soul to the boundless dimen-
sons of boys soul. You become aware
| distinctly, for the first time, perhaps, in
your life that you have drifted away
from an old country into a new one, that
you have not only forsaken but forgotten
certain fast beliefs of another time and
cline, that certain gossamer mental shad-
| ings have gone black in your life. Think
! of the ineffable terror, the self-in1icted
sweet terror you felt across the room
| from the girl of your fancy, whom you
/ desired to be near and did not desire to
! be near. Think of what substantial faith
! you gave the belief that horsehairs in
/ water turned to snakes in nine days. Re-
| member that splitting on the bait to en-
! tice the fish was not a laughable fancy
! with you once but a conviction; that
| drawing a circle around the marble
| charmed it from being hit; that a snakes
! tail did not die until shutdown; that let
! ting the old cat die caused death in the
/ family; that killing a toad made the cow
| give bloody milk, that these were not
| boyish fancies, but boyish certitudes.
| It is with these youthful beliefs that
| Will White begins to conjure the mind
| back to boyhood. 1t is one stage in three
| stages of his work. 1t is the least diff
! cult, for most of us, if we take time,
could think up these oddities of our youth
! and remember others that the author has
! not thought Of.
But there is a second stage of his work
| which is much finer and much more diff
cult and no one but White, so far as we
know, has ever attempted it. And that
consists in detailing a boys inexplicable
! actions-to tell how he loves, how he
/ thinks, how he reasons.
Here IS a boys love taken from one of
the stories in this book-the King of Boy
I Vile being the third person, singular: He
dared not seek her eyes but he mingled
.noisily in the crowd for awhile and then.
! on a desperate venture, carelessly snap
ped a peanut shell and hit his Hearts
Desire on the chin. He seemed to be
| looking thousand miles away in another
direction than that IN which the missile
took He waited nearly minute-a long,
| uncertain minute-for a response. Then
the shell came back; 1t did not hit him
| but it might have done so-that was all
he could ask. He snapped shells slyly for
a quarter of an hour and was happy.
Once he looked-not exactly looked; per-
haps peeked is the better word; took just
the tiniest light ming peek out of the tail
OF his eye and found a smile waiting for
him. At supper if anyone save Piggy
(the King had tried to take a chair by
his Hearts Desire when the plates came
round there would have been a fight.
Mealy Jones (rivaD knew this and he
knew what Piggy did not know, that II
would have been fight of two against
one. So Piggy sat bolt upright in his
chair beside the black-and-red checked
dress, and talked to the room at large;
but he spoke no word to the maiden at
his side. She noticed that Piggy kept
dropping his knife and the solicitude of
her sex prompted her to ask: Are your
hands cold, Winfeld?" And the instinct
made Piggy nod his head. Then she an
swered: Gold hands. a warm heart" At
this important bit of repartee the King
of Boyville so forgot his royal dignity
that he let an orange peel drive at Jimmy
Sears and pretended not TO hear her. His
only reply was to joggle her arm when
she reached for the cake. Piggy was so
exuberant and in such high spirits that
he put his plate on his chair and made
Rud Perkins walk turkey fashion three
times around the room. He forgot the dis
grace which his note Intercepted by the
teacher had brought him in the school;
he forgot the pretensions of Mealy Jones.
After that nothing mattered very much.
It didn't matter that Pfggy's shoe-bruised
feet began to sting like fire. It didn't
matter much If Mealy Jones' mother did
come for him with a lantern and break
up the party, II didn't matter much If
Jimmy Sears did call out Hello Roses
Red" when the boys reached the bedroom
where their hats were; for voice that
Piggy knew cried back from the adjoin-
ing room: you think you're cute, don't
you. old smarty?" Nothing in the world
could matter then. for had not Piggy
hot al q
card to His Hearts Desire which read:
IF I may not L home. may not sit
on the fence and c L go by" And had
she not taken IT and said merrily: I'm
going 10 keep this?" What could matter
after that open avowal? And so It came
to pass in little while THAI the courtly
company headed by the King Of Boyviile
filed gayly down the path. They walked
two by two and they started on a long
uneven way. But the King Of Boyville /
was full OF joy-a kind Of Joy so strange
that wise men may not measure It: a joy
so rare that even kings are proud Of It.
The third stage Of Whites work we
have caught only in one place. 1t IS the
delicate work of photographing, not a
boys manner. his words or his mind. but
his soul It occurs IN the goodnight 20 /
the whole book In 3 sketch called. The !
Herb Called Hearts Ease" No mother
can read Il without slipping 20 the bed |
side of her son and giving the sleeping /
dirty boy the tribute OF a Quickened love
A master of another century who wrote /
"Childhood's limitations Of Immortality /
would have glowed at the reading Of II
The boys have been Ioungi8g on 8 hay
cock back OF the barn. looking at a sum /
mer moon and have dispersed and left one /
boy alone. And this: After he had gar
Ell at the moon awhile a thrill OF sheer I
III, ~ -