Arizona republican., 1918-07-28

marbles or some other valuable con- sideration. permit other boys to "hol- | Ter" down his rain barrel or slide | down his cellar door, or, greatest privi lege of all, play in his fathers barn. | was the boy whose friendship was best | worth cultivating.
 Some boy, in the small community of a generation ago, was sure to have q father who possessed barn, and gen. erally speaking, he intuitively 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 sup port and influence. He could say ;nd do things to the other boys that they would not dare say or do to one an- other. 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.
 To be one of those entitled to ad- mission to the barn was to be in the right set; to be denied the privilege of playing in the barn was to suffer so- cial 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 neighbor- hood. Sometimes a rival appeared in the person of a new boy whose father had put up new and larger barn | than had before been 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 attrac- tion. Usually it was held by the boy whose father had the greatest num- Der of horses, or the largest number of vehicles. or a blackboard buggy, or a surrey. Some boys were won by the number of box stalls. There were boys who would turn their backs upon the family carryall just to gaze in wonder through the trap door at the hay loft. A great deal depended also on whether the hired man was a friend or foe.
 No better place than the barn could be found for a game of ''peggins in': the marbles could not run away from the retaining wall, and it was sport. beyond words to tell, when a "feller' found newly laid egg in the manager. Take 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' Jim | Hutchin. an Reddy Lane, An Skinny Wilkins were oyer for the forenoon. an all had good jack-knives, an there wasn't any fussin', an a game of mombletypeg was on.'' Then the de- light of small boyhood in the small town was pretty nearly complete.
 A barn need not have horse, or a vehicle, or stall, or friendly hired man in 1t to be attractive. Some of the most enjoyable barns ever known had nothing in them save discarded car pets. bedsprings. odd pieces of furni- ture, tool chest, a hair-covered trun, a step-ladder. parts of an abandoned bicycle. and wheezy melodeon. To De complete barn should have open ings in the roof to let the bats in, openings in the walls to let the rats in. and above all things, it should be full of mysterious noises. In the even tide, when the shadows were length enlng. there was part of one barn rom which gitnt or pirate issued when 1t was time to go home. The boys came to know him intimately They would see him first rising over the. top of the melodeon, getting big ger and Bigger: then he would stroke his long, black whiskers, wink al Reddy Lane. step across the hair covered trunk, and be jus, on the point of making for the door when the "gans" would rush wildly toward thu
 house and score another narrow es- cape.