scorned to
play with one. Of course, while they were very little, they played with
girls; and after they began to be big boys, eleven or twelve years old,
they began to pay girls some attention; but for the rest they simply
left them out of the question, except at parties, when the games obliged
them to take some notice of the girls. Even then, however, it was not
good form for a boy to be greatly interested in them; and he had to
conceal any little fancy he had about this girl or that unless he wanted
to be considered soft by the other fellows. When they were having fun
they did not want to have any girls around; but in the back-yard a boy
might play teeter or seesaw, or some such thing, with his sisters and
their friends, without necessarily losing caste, though such things were
not encouraged. On the other hand, a boy was bound to defend them
against anything that he thought slighting or insulting; and you did not
have to verify the fact that anything had been said or done; you merely
had to hear that it had.

MOTHERS

The boys had very little to do with the inside of one another's houses.
They would follow a boy to his door, and wait for him to come out; and
they would sometimes get him to go in and ask his mother for crullers or
sugar-cakes; when they came to see him they never went indoors for him,
but stood on the sidewalk and called him with a peculiar cry, something
like "E-oo-we, e-oo-we!" and threw stones at trees, or anything, till he
came out. If he did not come after a reasonable time, they knew he was
not there, or that his mother would not let him come. A fellow was kept
in that way, now and then. If a fellow's mother came to the door the
boys always ran.

The mother represented the family sovereignty; the father was seldom
seen, and he counted for little or nothing among the outside boys. It
was the mother who could say whether a boy might go fishing or in
swimming, and she was held a good mother or not according as she
habitually said yes or no. There was no other standard of goodness for
mothers in the boy's world, and could be none; and a bad mother might be
outwitted by any device that the other boys could suggest to her boy.
Such a boy was always willing to listen to any suggestion, and no boy
took it hard if the other fellows made fun when their plan got him into
trouble at home. If a boy came out after some such experience with his
face wet, and his eyes red, and his lips swollen, of c