Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-19
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACERELL.

way to get from one street to another
without going around, they will take
1t, no matter how tortuous it is, or
how much trespassing is involved.
There were few lots then, or now.
N which the path was not well defined.
The weeds might grow to six or seven
feet In height. but the path would be
as clear cut as If just made by the
hands OF men, rather than by their
feet.
The earth, in these narrow trails.
was beaten so firm by the daily passing
OF feet that even the weeds, which
usurped the remainder of the land,
were unable to get a foothold, and
had to be content with growing lux
uriantly on all sides. as If Haunting
their leaves and small flowers in the
face of the defiant clay of the path
way.
These paths, usually straight across,
reminded one of the old COW trails
which mysteriously wind through the
meadows OF upper New York State. To
the juveniles they took on all the
might and power of the Roman road
to the Romans
1t was along these paths that party
OF Indians" or scouts" as the case
might be. could advance secretly, with
out so much as q twig moving. The
danger, Of course, lay in meeting the
enemy attempting to utilize the same
easy means of progression.
Then what a banging and popping of
cap pistols there was as the two OPP
posing forces met in the depths of the
jungle! Each party might consist Of no
more than one man, but it made no
diference-the imagination of the
American small boy is able to make
twenty out of one, any day.
y X X
From our chance observation of the
mighty TarZan at work we would say
that the small boy of today has quite
as good an imagination as the boy OF
yeSteryear.
Perhaps every adult secretly hugs the
delusion that he was the proud posses
Sor, as a boy, of the best little magma
ton that ever was. There was a tend
ency on the part of what we may call
the oldfaShioned parent to believe that
a display of imagination was rather
fine trait in his offspring. 1t gave
promise of a novelist, at the least.
We do not know what the pSycholo-
gistS would say, but it is questionable
whether the boys of two or three tens of
years ago had any better, any more
vivid, imaginations, than do the small
boys of 1880. 1t is true that a close
acquaintance with intriguing inventions
may have dulled, to some extent, the
sense of wonder of the modern child.
But no doubt there is enough of it left
to permit the modern boy full adj
mittance at the gates of Wonderland.
4
The lots are vanishing.
Indian trails are being wiped out, as
city growth continues decade after
decade. Many of us who are compare
lively young can remember easily when
there were scarcely anything but vacant
tracts of land, with the exception of
Hendersons Castle, above Sixteenth and
u streets.
A favorite play place of the boys of
several generations ago were the steep
clay banks-or precipices, rather-which
now CLEAN in concrete on the west side
of Meridian Park.
1t was possible for bold and intrepid
invaders to climb those bluffs, but for
small boys of and 9 years of age the
job took on all the aspects of feat.
No climber of the Alps ever stood more
triumphantly on the summit of some
mighty peak than did the small boy of
the Washington of yesterday when he
scaled that bank. and looked down
upon the city to the south. After all,
conquest is conquest.