The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-03-21
Falling Out of the Tree.

There is a certain period in a male chld's
life when he is known as '.the kid When
he graduates from this rating he becomes
that boy" But no male child ever passes
from the ''kid' to the 'boy' stage without
falling out Of tree. There are other things
necessary, such as stepping barefoot on a
broken glass bottle, falling off the barn and
losing two teeth by foul tip, but falling out
OF tree is absolutely a sine qua non for q
satisfactory marking for the boy grade.
. OF course, no kid ever picks out a tree
and says, to himself, 'r'Weu, I guess you'll do
to fall out Of" That would be extremely I'M
professional and would tend to bar the kid
out of the game. All the trees out of doors
are just standing around waving their
branches in an invitation for the kid to
climb them, and he accepts most of the
challenges. But very rarely does he fall out
Of one of them, " s.-r .-.---ss..
1t is a game for the trees too and when one
Of them scores a boy, this tree is immensely
pleased and all the other trees wave their
branches and clap their leaves in congratula-
ton. --+# So. -: A. ~ -z~
There is quite a science to Shining a
tree and a boy starts in to learn it as
soon as he is able to climb all the fences
and walk the top rails The tree resists all
the efforts of the very small boy much as if it
were a creased pole, but one proud day the
boy sees a bird nest up in the branches and
nothing gcan keep him down after that. He
ascends like an Italian sailor up q mast
when there is across Yankee mate below
waving a ropes end as a stimulus.
The first tree Stuffy Bangs ever fell out of
was willow tree. 1t looked very simple
and Stuffy Skinned it with some contempt.
He had conquered all. the maple and elm
trees in the vfcfnitga and he took on the willow
just to keep hisFhand in. But this, contempt
was where his fatal error came in. For the
willow trees branches are not as strong as
are those of its friends, the maple and elm.
Stuffy was near the top, when the tree scored
a fair and square throw on him by the break
ing of one of it's branches on which Stuffy' s
foot was bearing his whole weight. Stuffy
grabbed a branch with his ether hand but his
weight was on it and it broke. also and he
went down quite fast. Every branch he
caught or struck in his passage gave way. ::
The law of gravitation did the rest. There
Is some kind of fool law they say that
bodies of matter attract each other in
proportion to the square Of the mass and
inversely as, to the square of the distance,
and Stuffy and the earth came together under
the control of this law. The other boys
laughed and said he bounced when he hit
bottom and some of them asked, y Did it hurt
you, Stufy?" 1t might possibly: have hurt
If Shorty Hitchcock hadn't Just then seen
"a birds nest in the next tree and started
to climb it. Under the pressure of this new
idea, Stufy Bangs forgot to be hurt though
the jar was something terrific and before the
day was over he had climbed the big elm and
looked into the hangbird's nest with four
pearl-white eggs in it, " Is ~ .""'
Shucks! You can't hurt a boy and he
knows it. - .-..'-
A J. Russell.