Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1893 — To Be a Boy Again. [ARTICLE]

To Be a Boy Again.

I’d like to be a boy again without a woe or care, with freckles scattered on my face and hayseed in my hair; I’d like to rise at 4 o’clock and do a hundred chores, and saw the wood and feed the hogs and lock the stable-doors; and herd the hens and watch the bees and take the mules to drink, and teach the turkeys how to swim so that they won’t sink; and milk about a hundred cows and bring in wood to burn, and stand out in the sun all day and churn, and churn, and churn; and wear my brother’s cast off clothes and

walk four miles to school, and get a licking every day for breaking some old rule; and then go home again at night and do the chores once more, and milk the cows and feed the hogs and curry mules galore; and then crawl wearily upstairs to seek my little bed, and hear dad say: “That worthless boy! He isn’t worth his bread!’’ I’d like to be a boy again; a boy has so much fun; his life is just a round of mirth from rise to set of sun; I guess there’s nothing pleasanter than closing stable-doors and herding hens, and chasing bees and doing evening chores. — Washington News.