The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-08-19
BARN-MADE POPULARITY.
A Little Thing That Gave Distinction
to Boys Generation Ago.


In simpler times, and in parts of the
United States where simple customs pre-
vailed, the popular small boy of the
nelghborhood was not necessarily the son
OF the richest or most prominent family, /
but, more likely the boy in whose yard
there was a good rain barrel, a smooth
cellar door, or barn. The boy who would |
now and then, from pure, favor, or in |
return for marbles or some other valuable |
consideration, permit other boys to 'shol-
ler' down his rain barrel, or slide down
his cellar door, or greatest privilege of
all, play in his fathers barn, was the boy
whose friendship was worth eultivating.
Some boy, in the small community of
a generation ago, was sure to have IA
father who possessed barn, and, gen
| orally speaking, he intuitivey felt his
power and exercised it over the other boys
on his street or in his part of the town.
| Wherever he went the barn stood back
of him and gave him support and infu
enee. He could say and do things to the.
other boys that they would not dare say
or do to one another, simply because the
boy he said or did things to could see the
barn door behind him, open or closed, as
the case might be.
| 10 ne one OF JnOSe entitled TO duinlS-
sion to the barn was to be IN the right
set; to be denied the privilege of playing
in the barn was to suffer social ostracism
Sometimes the boy whose father had
barn enjoyed a monopoly Then he was
the recognized aristocrat among the boys
of the street or the neighborhood.
Sometimes a rival appeared in the person
of new boy whose father had put up a
nd la, 10, 10, lal
seen in that quarter, or sometimes the
father of boy who had no barn to begin
with became better off and put one up.
In such circumstances prestige went with
the barn that had the greater attraction
Usually it was held by the boy whose
father had the greatest number of horses,
or the largest number of vehicles, or a
blackboard buggy, or a surrey. Some boys
We're won by the number of box
stalls. There were boys who would turn
their hacks upon the family carryall gust
to gaze in wonder through the trap door
at the hay loft great deal depended
also on whether the hired man was a
friend or foe.
No better place than the barn could be
found for game of 'peggins in; the
marbles could not run away from the
retaining wall, and it was sport beyond
words to tell, when teller found a
newly laid egg in the manger. Take a
bright June morning, after the horses and
wagons had been sent to town or into
the fields, and the sun was shining through
the leaves of the crabapple tree and
weaving lace upon the barn floor: take a
morning when there wasn't any school
AN Skinny Wilkins were over for Tho
forenoon. an all had good jaekknives, an
there wasn't any fussin, an game o
mombletypeg was on Then the delight
of small boyhood in the small town was
pretty nearly complete
a barn need not have horse. or We
hlcle, or a stall, or a friendly hired mar
q in it to be attractive Some of the mos
enjoyable barns ever known had nothin,
IN them save discarded carpets, bedsprings
odd pieces of furniture tool chest,
i hair-covered trunk, step-ladder, parts 0
an abandoned bicycle, and a wheel,
!, | melodeon. 10 be complete barn shoul,
have openings in the roof to let the bat
in, openings in the walls to let the rat
A in. and, above all things, it should be ful
of mysterious noises. In the eventide
when the shadows were lengthenina
there was part of one barn from whicl
giant or pirate issued when it wa
time to go home The boys came t
know him intimately. They would Sc
him first rising over the top of the melo
deon, getting bigger and bigger: then h
would stroke his long, black whiskers
t wink at Reddy Lane, step across the hail
Z, covered trunk. and be just on the poin
of making for the door when the gang
$ would rush wildly toward the house an
i score another narrow eseape-Christia
Science Monitor
f