Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-08-22
"WHEN I WAS A Boy"
A Review of Childhood for the Man Of
sHr- TODAY.

A Review of Childhood for the Man Of
E Today.
There are those who can remember
as far back as childhood; and there are
those who can't. Some there are who
in Alice Meynell's beautiful express
sion of it-keep the immortal child tar
rying all his lifetime In their hearts;
others, having put away childish things
grimly decline to remember how they
felt and thought and acted when they
were no higher from the floor than a
big dog.
A man who has forgotten his child
hood tries to talk the Juvenile dialect
and fails. He cannot mentally get
down on his hands and knees and-in
the spirit-make himself small enough
to join the game played, the life led in
the childish microcosm. 1t is Alice In
Wonderland's puzzle whether to drink
from a bottle or nibble at cake in or
der to shrink sufficiently to enter tiny
door. He forgets how the scale Of val
ues and sizes was inverted when his
birthdays were few. A cent looked
very big to him then. Vacation was
only few hours long; but the school
year was an intolerable lifetime. Food
and a place to sleep were solid facts,
and clothes were taken for granted
with no particular thankfulness to the
source Of their provision. Parental
might made right, and fathers and
mothers often interfered unreasonably
and laid down the law with needless
harsness-in the opinion Of the patient
and long suffering offspring. The child
was sent out with a snow shovel or a
lawn mower or a pitchfork several
sizes too large for him, and that, Of
course, was cruelty. A baseball bat
just as heavy or a canoe paddle just as
long would have been received with
joy and applied with delight.
Adults were so big and strong they
could not realize how little and how
weak you. were when there was any
work to do. They had a strange, ty-
rannic notion that after the school
doors closed a little labor Of the house
or field would not undermine your con-
stitution and lead straight to a prema-
ture obituary. They saw with what
spontaneous gaity you rushed off to the
ballfield or the millpond, and they could
not believe that 1t would irreparably
damage your constitution to saw wood
or cut the grass. And then they rub
bed It in" by telling you what fine
thing 1t was to be young, and that you
would never be so happy in all your
life again. You thought you were
Roman galley slave, and they could not
hear your clanking shackles, but they
kept assuring you that you were as free
as a bird with a home In the widest
mountains.
Yet, despite the cruelty practiced up
on children, there are few compensa-
tions in being young. You escape anx-
ious consultation as to how to make
one dollar do the work of ten. You
sleep with an easy head and an un-
troubled conscience-for you said you
were sorry, at your mothers knee, and
that wiped out all old scores. You do
not have to make important decisions
on which the living wage Of hundreds
or thousands Of others depends. Ev-
erything Is done for you-there Is no
distressful foraging. A man-grown
cannot confine himself to his own
troubles-he has a duty whose circum-
ference may exceed his interests and
his sympathies. He Is a citizen of the
world and his newspaper may spoil his
breakfast with evil tidings. He cannot
live hutched and sheltered. If he was
coddled too long at home, and not
taught to stand and run soon enough,
that was his misfortune. He learns
now at the expense Of hard knocks and
ruthless blows.
We look back regretfully at those
days enveloped in a roseate haze Of
fairy book responsibility; yet on
creeping age brings with it from year
to year it's own peculiar benefits and
pleasures. Choate, when ambassador
to England told his hearers that he had
discovered that the eighth decade Of
life was the most agreeable Of all; and
blessed is the lot Of him who insists
with oliver Wendell Holmes that the
septuagenarian is still one of the boys,
II only he wills to be. Remembering
the joys of the first decade or two, he
has experienced in their fulness the
satisfaction of being man and OF do
ing a mans work in the world. He
has. perhaps, found himself in a con-
genial occupation which taxes every
capacity and gives room enough for
the exercise of imagination as well as
the fulfllment of dutiful routine. He
has learned, as Doctor Eliot puts 1t, to
| find pleasure in his work, and that fun
is something besides chasing butter
| flies or romping with the dog. The
| durable satisfactions" of which the
good doctor speaks he knows by heart
| and hand. He does not waste time any
longer upon sickening misadventures
and fools errands. He Is not so guilt
BILE to the smooth talker who would
part him from his money. A clergy
| man Of this city describes the impor-
tunity of one who came to his door one
| day and said, Sir, am looking for a
| little financial SuccOr." You should
have come to me when was one," said
| the dominic, as he gently but decisive
ly closed the door.
But old age has no business to bring
| with it the "sour severity" to which
| Milton adverts in that connection. 1t
has no right to dry up the wellspring
Of human kindness, in the conviction
that 1t is a mean and miserable day
we live in. There is no scenery In ma
ture so beautiful as the sundown of a
| life that for all the sorrow has not lost
faith, and for all the disappointment
and the broken promises has not relin-
quished hope that "the best is yet to
| e."-Philadelphia Ledger.
"a" Wood mines are found In Upper
Tonquin, China The wood was origi-
nally a pine forest which the earth
swallowed in some cataclysm. Some
of the trees are yard in diameter.
They lie in q slanting direction and in
sandy soils, which cover them at q
depth of about eight yards. AS the top
branches are we'll preserved, 1t Is
| thought that the geological convulsion
which buried them cannot have occur