The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1915-11-04
VANISHED PLEASURES,

One of the early summer pleasures of |
my childhood was securing a supply of
potato balls, which when stuck on pro-
perry pointed and properly timber stick
could be thrown good distance. But
the potato balls have disappeared and
one now would be more worthy of men
ton than Strawberries in late October.
Fall brought another pleasure beech
nutting. AS soon as good frost came |,
and many other children, started out in
search of those nuts, for in the days of
which | write children in small village
could not buy nuts, at the stores, for the
good and sufficient reasons that they
were not for sale, and if they had been
there was no money to buy them with
Ordinarily beechnuts were picked one
or two at time, but occasionally some
boy who wanted to do business on large
scale would spread a sheet or hay-cap
u der the tree and then by climbing, beat
O. shake the nuts off. | always hand
picked mine.
One year had an ambition to pick half
a bushel. | suppose it was of the same
type as that which led Charles S. Mellen
to try to gather in all the New England
transportation lines and John D. Rookie,
Teller to desire all the oil wells of the
country. l gratifed my ambition, and
although | did not get into the tolls of
the law, l wore my finger nails to the
quick and have never wanted any beech
nuts since.
NV experience was much like that of
! a member of Congress of whom read.
He went to Washington with an ambition
to save the greater part of bis salary, and
to do so he made his wife his secretary
and they boarded themselves, living
/ l., &c fhot ho
reached his ambition, but that he could
cracker without gagging.
The beechnuts has not become as scarce
as the potato ball. but they da not seem
to be as plenty as they used to be; in fact,
| haven't seen any children beechnurting
for years.
There was another pleasure which
came between the seasons for potato
balls and notwithstanding truck.
We INDUCED in it while the summer
school was in session and it was sum-
mer school in fact, for it began in June
and kept right through the weeks and
months when the children of today are
enjoying Nature at her best. And the
school kept every Saturday forenoon or
else every other Saturday all day.
But the game. The boys chose SIDES
| and the SIDES stationed themselves In the
road few rods apart. The truck, which
was of the size boy used on his home
made cart, was rolled by one side and if
it was not stopped, the other side moved
back to where it did stop. 1t was then
rolled back and the first side had to move
back if it was not stopped.
Sometimes a side would be driven
long distance and l recall one occasion
when the distance was too great to get
back to school when the bell rang and
both sides got blasting" from the
teacher. Thus was bitter mingled with
the sweet of victory and the sting of de-
feat made sharper.
The game as we have described it
seems simple and yet it was attended
with danger. Pieces of board or plank
were used to stop the truck and some
times a finger would get hit and some
times, if the board was held at wrong
angle, the truck would run up and hit the
boy in the head, After some sad expe-
riences overcame those dangers by put
ting a handle on piece of board at an
angle SO that the truck could neither hit
my fingers nor my head.
l have never seen this game played
since those days and presume the boys of |
today never heard of it. 1t will probably |
be classed among the homely joys of the |
poor of which the poet Gray wrote, but it
was good game. -Liston T. Evans in |
the Piscataquis Observer.