The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-10-20
EDening Chat
OutgroMing INNINGS.
BY RUTH CAMERON.


When you were a child did you ever
have A1geritis?
1 fancy you did for it is a disease al
most as common to childhood as the
mumps or measles. Rare, indeed, is
the child who escapes this mania for
devouring whole the stories of Dick,
the Newsboy; Tom, the Bootblack,
and all the rest Oe Mr.. Ayers niracu-
lousy fortunate herOres.
For some reason my mother object
ed very much to my reading these
books, and just when the disease was
down with violent case, L was forbid
den to. read any of them.
OF course 1 was most reSentful.
You just wait!" 1 threatened. when
I'm twenty-one, I'm going to buy
everyone of those books and read
them through
/ saw tom, the Bootblack," in my
| small nephew's room the other day;
the prophecy came back to me and I
smiled to-and at-myself
You see, I've been twenty-one
longer than 1 care to think and
| haven't read one of Mr.. Ayers books
yet.
That's the way of life, isn't it?
Once on q time there was a little
girl who loved to make that fascinat-
ing confection known as snow ice
cream. Whenever the fresh snow fell,
she used to beg her mother to let her
make a plate of it. Now that was be-
fore the days when germs were the
| bugbears they are today, so this little
girls mother used to let her make as
much as she could spare milk for.
| But the family was large and milk was
scarce, so that was never half so much
as the little girl wanted. Like every
one else, the little girl suddenly
grew up and found herself in a home
| of her own One day the first snow
| fell and the little girl remembered.
I'm going to make snow ice-cream,'
she said, land just think! 1 can
make all 1 want!'
So she mixed the snow and the milk
and the sugar and the vanilla and
then she tasted it. TT doesn't taste
right" she said. There must have
| been something else that 1 used to
put in" Ard she thought and thought
but she couldn't remember what it
was, and she never could remember,
SO she never made it again.
Are you wiser than she? Can you
| guess what she forgot to put in, read
er friend?
Robert Louis Stevenson tells us in
| one of his essays how he loved his
| toys and hated to give them up. 81
shi.ll conform for a little while to the
| ways of their foolish world" he prom
| iscd himself; but as soon as / have
made enough money shall retire and
shut myself up among my playthings
| until the day 1 die g. @e
| He even selected theo house which
was to witness his return to child
| hood. And yet, as the reader has
probably anticipated" he writes, lit is
never likely to be carried into effect.
There was a worm in the bud, fatal
error in the premises
There is a certain sadness about the
way we are pushed willy nilly out
of our childhood's dreams and desires,
isn't there? And yet, there's this
confort-it's sad to outgrow things,
but it would be infinitely sadoer not
to- To return to Stevenson once more,
"Cnildhood must pass away and then
youth, as surely as age approaches.
The true wisdom is to be always sea-
sonable and to change with a good
gro ce in changing circumstances. To
love playthings well rs child, 10 lead
an adventurous and honorable youth,
and TO settle when the time arrives
into a green and smiling age IS to be
| a good artist in life and deserve well
of yourself and your neighbor."