street; and generally when a little fellow lost his egg, he began to cry
and went into the house. This did not prove him a cry-baby; it was
allowable, like crying when you stumped your toe. I think this custom of
fighting eggs came from the Pennsylvania Germans, to whom the Boy's Town
probably owed its Protestant observance of Easter. There was nothing
religious in the way the boys kept it, any more than there was in their
way of keeping Christmas.

I do not think they distinguished between it and All-Fool's Day in
character or dignity. About the best thing you could do then was to
write April Fool on a piece of paper and pin it to a fellow's back, or
maybe a girl's, if she was a big girl, and stuck-up, or anything. I do
not suppose there is a boy now living who is silly enough to play this
trick on anybody, or mean enough to fill an old hat with rocks and
brickbats, and dare a fellow to kick it; but in the Boy's Town there
were some boys who did this; and then the fellow had to kick the hat, or
else come under the shame of having taken a dare. Most of the
April-foolings were harmless enough, like saying, "Oh, see that flock of
wild-geese flying over!" and "What have you got on the back of your
coat!" and holloing "April Fool!" as soon as the person did it.
Sometimes a crowd of boys got a bit with a hole in it, and tied a string
in it, and laid it on the sidewalk, and then hid in a cellar, and when
anybody stooped to pick it up, they pulled it in. That was the greatest
fun, especially if the person was stingy; but the difficulty was to get
the bit, whether it had a hole in it or not.

From the first of April till the first of May was a long stretch of
days, and you never heard any one talk about a May Party till April Fool
was over. Then there always began to be talk of a May Party, and who was
going to be invited. It was the big girls that always intended to have
it, and it was understood at once who was going to be the Queen. At
least the boys had no question, for there was one girl in every school
whom all the boys felt to be the most beautiful; but probably there was
a good deal of rivalry and heart-burning among the girls themselves.
Very likely it was this that kept a May Party from hardly ever coming to
anything but the talk. Besides the Queen, there were certain little
girls who were to be Lambs; I think there were Maids of Honor, too; but
I am not sure. The Lambs had to keep very close to the Queen's person,