Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1902-06-20

"And another thing that my boys
! miss that their old dad enjoyed when
, he was their age" said the middle
aged man with the ample waistband,
lis what l called the sneaked swim
the swim in the old crick or river that
| a fellows folks didn't know anything
about-until they found out, and then
the things that happened! Now, let
my boys 60 down to the bathing
! beach-take 'em down there myself as
| often as not. They get their swims
! and enjoy EN-, and the swims do 'em
good and teach 'em to take care or
| themselves. But there amt any such
| thing as believing that those boys OF
mine enjoy their cut-and-dried swims
| as much as we kids used to when we
had to sneak our swims, unbeknownst
| to the old folks, in the old creek or
river-there isn't any believing such
thing as that.
1T surely is queer how we all, from
childhood up, take sort of particular
| delight in dong just those things that
we know are forbidden and that we
ought not to do-seems to me that the
fact shows that there's whole heap
O. cussedness in human nature that's
Just naturally got to get worked out
of our systems before we're inserted
into our little six feet of EARTH When
it got so that my parents didn't par
| ticularly mind my going in swimming
wouldn't feel like going in more'n
a couple of times week, whereas be-
fore I'd been found out I'd hang
around the old crick or river without
any buds on, from morning till night,
and hated to see the sun going down
because that meant my having to
slope homewards for supper
"Long about this time of the year,
when the days nd be getting long and
warmish, was when I'd first begin to
take my sneaked swims when | was a
kid. There was only one process in
those days. That was to keep right
on going on the quiet until found out
the getting nabbed was inevitable
and then, after being padded almost
to death in the woodshed by your
angry dad, have him take you down
the crick to see whether you would
tell the truth or not in saying that
you could swim. When you made good
and you could always make good
having probably been going in on the
| quiet for year or so, and like as not
| being able to swim all around him
why, then he'd come home and say,
Nav, the boys all right in the water
and that settled it,
ut makes me feel cheap right down
| to the present minute to remember
some of the whoppers used to tell
my mother in those days when l was
sneaking my swims.- 1t sure does.
Member one time I'd been sitting on
sand bar all day long until my back
was almost the color of a geranium
and that night, in passing by me, my
mother brushed against me. l could
not refrain from letting out a holler,
my sun-broiled back hurt me so-and
then she made me take off my jacket
and shirt-my dad wasn't at home
so she could see what allied my back.
| squirmed and wriggled and tried to
get out of it, but had to do it. and of
course she saw in second that had
about as bad case of blistered back
as there was in four counties.
"'Son,' she said to me, regarding me
gravely, how did your back get that
way?'
well, say, hate to own up to it,
but burned If | didn't have the nerve
to tell that grand, good woman that
I'd been eating wild Strawberries in
the woods all day and the condition
of my back must be attributable to
hives! Say, wouldn't that make
cigar store Indian blush if he had
to own up to it? She rubbed cold
cream-not the stuff that you buy at
drug stores, but the real thing right
out of the pan-on my back, and then
sat beside my bed and told me that
she wouldn't tell dad on me If I'd
promise her never to go in any more
without permission, which would be
when l was older, and she said that
ought to know that her life and dads
life wouldn't be worth anything to
them if | got drowned, and | prom
ised-and, of course l went rigat in
again the next day like the whelp that
l was in common with all the rest of
the kids of my day.
"Of course, was only an irrespon-
sible tad" said the miudle-aged man
in conclusion, according to the Wash
ington Star, land yet, dye know, even
yet, | often think of the little mother
sitting there on the edge of the bed,
in the tiny, quiet room, with the moon
light streaming in, and somehow or
another often wish that hadn't bro
ken those promises to her the way l
did"