The Court of Boyville
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The Court of Boyville - Orson Lowell
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Court of Boyville, by William Allen White, Illustrated by Orson Lowell and Gustav Verbeek
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: The Court of Boyville
Author: William Allen White
Release Date: May 18, 2004 [eBook #12377]
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COURT OF BOYVILLE***
E-text prepared by Christine Gehring, Tim Koeller,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE COURT OF BOYVILLE
By
William Allen White
Author Of The Real Issue, etc.
1898
Contents
PROLOGUE
THE MARTYRDOM OF MEALY
JONES
A RECENT CONFEDERATE VICTORY
WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT
JAMES SEARS: A NAUGHTY PERSON
MUCH POMP AND SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES
THE HERB CALLED HEARTS-EASE
Where is Boyville? By what track
May we trace our journey back;
Up what mountains, thro' what seas
By what meadow-lands and leas,
Must we travel to the bourne
Of the shady rows of corn
That lead down to the Willows
Where the day is always morn?
COURT OF BOYVILLE
Illustrated by ORSON LOWELL (with the exception of the first story, the illustrations for which are by GUSTAV VERBEEK).
ILLUSTRATIONS
Say, boys, where's its bottle?
The three boys were scuffling for the possession of a piece of rope
He saw Abe catch Jimmy and hold his head under water
He felt his father's finger under his collar and his own feet shambling
Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by an arm
His feet hanging out of the back of the wagon that had held the coffin
His luck was bad
He withdrew from the game and sat alone against the barn
As she turned to her turkey-slicing
The new preacher, for whom the party was made
The first long dress
Dickey, Dickey, for gracious sake, keep still
Did you know my dad was a soldier?
During the next two hours the boy wandered on the prairie
Mary Pennington, aged two years, three months, and ten days
Piggy went to get his flying hat
She stroked his hand and snuggled closer to him
Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds
Chased the little girls around the yard with it
She would not have invited Harold Jones to sit and sing with her during the opening hour
Harold Jones
To study his tastes
... The comradeship ... was beautiful to see
The red-headed Pratt girl
He could only snap chalk in a preoccupied way and listen to his Heart's Desire
Piggy was piling up the primary urchins in wiggling, squealing piles
He watched the teacher's finger crook a signal for the note to be brought forward
... fought boys who were three classes above him ... whipped groups of boys of assorted sizes
Over his mother's shoulders Piggy saw the hired girl giggle
Her son ate rapidly in silence
His cleanliness pleased his mother and she boasted of it to the mothers of other boys
A little maid in a black-and-red check
Piggy sat on the front porch, and reviewed the entire affair
It began when his Heart's Desire had fluttered into his autograph album
At this important bit of repartee
His heart was full of bitterness
Throwing sticks in the water to scare the fish
A crawler, a creeper, a toddler, a stumbler, and a sneaker
James
Mrs. Jones came out to take care of the butter
The sort of boy who would unsex himself by looking at a baby
Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie that morning that she was no longer the baby
His father strutting around town ... bragging of the occurrence that filled the boy with shame
He jumped for the slanting boards with his bare feet, and his heart was glad
He sat on a log and slowly lifted up his foot, twisting his face into an agonized knot
Spit, spit, spy, tell me whur my chicken is, er I'll hit ye in the eye
I'll pay for your chicken, I say. Now you keep away from me
An irregular circumference that touched his ears and his chin and his hair
Got anything here fit to eat?
What'd you want to take Annie's doll away from her for?
She drew him down and kissed his cheek while he pecked at her lips
Piggy Pennington ... galloped his father's fat delivery horse up and down the alley
Mammoth Consolidated Shows (left)
Mammoth Consolidated Shows (right)
Oil made by hanging a bottle of angle-worms in the sun to fry
How many bags of carpet rags went to the ragman
Brother Baker—a tiptoeing Nemesis
Dressed-up children were flitting along the side streets, hurrying their seniors
The Balloon-Vender wormed his way through the buzzing crowd, leaving his wares in a red and blue trail behind him
The Blue Sash about the country girl's waist and the flag in her Beau's hat
One's a trick elephant. You'd die a-laughing if you saw him
It's an awful good one. Can't he go just this once?
8 Funny Clowns—count them 8 (left)
8 Funny Clowns—count them 8 (right)
Well, son, you're a daisy. They generally drop the first kick
The other wranglers ... dropped out for heavy repairs
When Mr. Pennington's eyes fell on Bud, he leaned on a show-case and laughed till he shook all over
Miss Morgan, I just want you to look at my boy
Now, Henry, don't ever have anything to do with that kind of trash again
Here's a dollar I got for ridin' the trick mule ... I thought it would be nice for the missionary society
Gee, we're going to have pie, ain't we
PROLOGUE
We who are passing through the wilderness of this world
find it difficult to realize what an impenetrable wall there is around the town of Boyville. Storm it as we may with the simulation of light-heartedness, bombard it with our heavy guns, loaded with fishing-hooks and golf-sticks, and skates and base-balls, and butterfly-nets, the walls remain. If once the clanging gates of the town shut upon a youth, he is banished forever. From afar he may peer over the walls at the games inside, but he may not be of them. Let him try to join them, and lo, the games become a mockery, and he finds that he is cavorting still outside the walls, while the good citizens inside are making sly sport of him. Who, being recently banished from Boyville, has not sought to return? In vain does he haunt the swimming hole; the water elves will have none of him. He hushes their laughter, muffles their calls, takes the essence from their fun, and leaves it dust upon their lips.
But we of the race of grown-ups are a purblind people. Otherwise, when we acknowledge what a stronghold this Boyville is, we the banished would not seek to steal away the merry townsmen, and bruise our hearts and theirs at our hopeless task. We have learned many things in our schools, and of the making of books there has been no end; so it is odd that we have not learned to let a boy be a boy. Why not let him feel the thrill from the fresh spring grass under his feet, as his father felt it before him, and his father's father, even back to Adam, who walked thus with God! There is a tincture of iron that seeps into a boys blood with the ozone of the earth, that can come to him by no other way. Let him run if he will; Heavens air is a better elixir than any that the alchemist can mix. What if he roams the woods and lives for hours in the water? What if he prefers the barn to the parlor? What if he fights? Does he not take the risk of the scratched face and the bruises? Should he not be in some measure the judge of the situation before him when the trouble begins? Boys have an ugly name for one of their kind who discovers suddenly, in a crisis of his own making, that he is not allowed to fight. And it were better to see a boy with a dozen claw-marks down his face than to see him eat that name in peace.
Now this conclusion may seem barbaric to elders who have to pay for new clothes to replace the torn ones, And according to their light perhaps the elders see clearly. But the grown-up people forget that their wisdom has impaired their vision to see as boys see and to pass judgment upon things in another sphere.
For Boyville is a Free Town in the monarchy of the world. Its citizens mind their own business, and they desire travellers in this waste to do likewise. The notion that spectacled gentry should come nosing through the streets and alleys of Boyville, studying the sanitation, which is not of the best, and objecting to the constitution and by laws,—which were made when the rivers were dug and the hills piled up,—the notion of an outsider interfering with the Divine right of boys to eat what they please, to believe what they please, and, under loyalty to the monarchy of the world, to do what they please, is repugnant to this free people. Nor does it better matters when the man behind the spectacles explains that to eat sheep-sorrel is deleterious; to feed younkers Indian turnip is cruel; to suck the sap of the young grapevine in spring produces malaria; to smoke rattan is depraving, and to stuff one's stomach with paw-paws and wild-grapes is dangerous in the extreme.
For does not the first article of the law of this Free Town expressly state, that boys shall be absolved from obeying any and all laws regulating the human stomach, and be free of the penalties thereto attaching? And again when Wisdom says that the boy shall give up his superstitions, the boy points to hoary tradition, which says that the snakes tail does not in fact