The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1902-06-20
JOY OF CHILDHOOD.
MlDDLE-AGED MAN INDUCES IN
SOME PHlLOSOPHiZlNG.
"~Sneaklng q SWIM the Mo It Tempting
of All Forbidden Pastimea-One Scene
That Lingers In the Old Fellows
Memory Yet

"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 w%aistband,
sis 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 the
the things that happened! Now, let
my boys go 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 EN- to take care OF
themselves. But there amt any such
thing as believing that those boys of
mine enjoy their cu~t-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
q thing as that.
ut surely is queer how we all, from
childhood up, take a 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 a 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 moren
a couple of times a 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 l hated to see the sui going down
because that meant my having to
slope homewards for. supper.
Long about this time of the year,
when the days 'ud 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 a 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.
1T makes me feel cheap right down
to the present minute to remember
some of the w%hoppers, 1 used to tell
my moCher in those days when l was
sneaking my swims. 1t sure does.
Member one time I'd been sitting on
a 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-. / 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.
l squirmed and wriggled and tried to
get out of it, but I had to do it, and of
course she saw in a second that | had
about as bad a Ease 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, I hate to w up to it,
but burned if l didn't have the nerve
to tell hat grand, good woman that
I'd been eating wild strawberries in
the woods all day and the condition
If my back must be attributable to
hives! Say, wouldn't that make a
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 I was older, and she said that \
ought to know that her life and dads
life wouldn't be worth anything to
them if l got drowned, and l prom
ised-and, Of course l went right 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, l was only an irrespon-
sible tad" said the mludle-aged man
! in conclusion, according to the Wash
ington Star, land yet, dye know, even
yet, l 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 l often wish that l hadn't bro
ken those promises to her the way I
did"