"Do you know what the reason is?" asked Wallace.
"I suppose because they think that I am not old enough," replied Phonny, "but I am."
"I don"t think that that is the reason," said Wallace. "Stuyvesant is not quite so old as you are, and yet I shall let _him_ go and ride alone whenever he pleases."
"What _is_ the reason then?" asked Phonny.
"Because you are not _man_ enough I suppose," said Wallace. "You might be more manly, without being any older, and then people would put more trust in you, and you would have a great many more pleasures."
Phonny was rather surprised to hear his cousin Wallace speak thus. He had thought that he _was_ manly--very manly; but it was evident that his cousin considered him boyish.
"I do not know," continued Wallace, "but that you are as manly as other boys of your years."
"Except Stuyvesant," said Phonny.
"Yes, except Stuyvesant," said Wallace, "I think that he is rather remarkable. I do not think that you are _very_ boyish,--but you are growing up quite fast and you are getting to be pretty large. It is time for you to begin to evince some degree of the carefulness, and considerateness, and sense of responsibility, that belong to men.
"There are two kinds of boyishness," continued Wallace. "One kind is very harmless."
"What kind is that?" asked Phonny.
"Why if a boy continues," said Wallace, "when he is quite old, to take pleasure in amus.e.m.e.nts which generally please only young children, that is boyishness of a harmless kind. For example, suppose we should see a boy, eighteen years old, playing marbles a great deal, we should say that he was boyish. So if _you_ were to have a rattle or any other such little toy for a plaything, and should spend a great deal of time in playing with it, we should say that it was very boyish or childish. Still that kind of boyishness does little harm, and we should not probably do any thing about it, but should leave you to outgrow it in your own time."
"What kind of boyishness do you mean then, that is not harmless?"
asked Phonny.
"I mean that kind of want of consideration, by which boys when young, are always getting themselves and others into difficulty and trouble, for the sake of some present and momentary pleasure. They see the pleasure and they grasp at it. They do not see the consequences, and so they neglect them. The result is, they get into difficulty and do mischief. Other people lose confidence in them, and so they have to be restricted and watched, and subjected to limits and bounds, when if they were a little more considerate and manly, they might enjoy a much greater liberty, and many more pleasures."
"I don"t think that I do so," said Phonny.
"No," rejoined Wallace, "I don"t think that you do; that is I don"t think that you do so more than other boys of your age. But to show you exactly what I mean, I will give you some cases. Perhaps they are true and perhaps they are imaginary. It makes no difference which they are.
"Once there was a boy," continued Wallace, "who came down early one winter morning, and after warming himself a moment by the sitting-room fire, he went out in the kitchen. It happened to be ironing day, and the girl was engaged in ironing at a great table by the kitchen fire.
We will call the girl"s name Dorothy.
"The boy seeing Dorothy at this work, wished to iron something, himself. So Dorothy gave him a flat-iron and also something to iron."
"What was it that she gave him to iron?" said Phonny.
"A towel," said Wallace.
"Well," said Phonny, "go on."
"The boy took the flat-iron and went to work," continued Wallace.
"Presently, however, he thought he would go out into the shed and see if the snow had blown in, during the night. He found that it had, and so he stopped to play with the drift a few minutes. At last he came back into the kitchen, and he found, when he came in, that Dorothy had finished ironing his towel and had put it away. He began to complain of her for doing this, and then, in order to punish her, as he said, he took two of her flat-irons and ran off with them, and put them into the snow drift."
"Yes," said Phonny, "that was me. But then I only did it for fun."
"Was the fun for yourself or for Dorothy?" asked Wallace.
"Why, for me," said Phonny.
"And it made only trouble for Dorothy," said Wallace.
"Yes," said Phonny, "I suppose it did."
"That is the kind of boyishness I mean," said Wallace, "getting fun for yourself at other people"s expense; and so making them dislike you, and feel sorry when they see you coming, and glad when you go away."
Phonny was silent. He saw the folly of such a course of proceeding, and had nothing to say.
"There is another case," said Wallace. "Once I knew a boy, and his name was--I"ll call him Johnny."
"What was his other name?" asked Phonny.
"No matter for that, now," said Wallace. "He went out into the barn, and he wanted something to do, and so the boy who lived there, gave him a certain corner to take charge of, and keep in order."
"What was that boy"s name?" asked Phonny.
"Why, I will call him Hazelnut," said Wallace.
"Ah!" exclaimed Phonny, "now I know you are going to tell some story about me and Beechnut." Here Phonny threw back his head and laughed aloud. He repeated the words Johnny and Hazelnut, and then laughed again, until he made the woods ring with his merriment.
Wallace smiled, and went on with his story.
"Hazelnut gave him the charge of a corner of the barn where some harnesses were kept, and Johnny"s duty was to keep them in order there. One day Hazelnut came home and found that Johnny had taken out the long reins from the harness, and had fastened them to the branches of two trees in the back yard, to make a swing, and then he had loaded the swing with so many children, as to break it down."
"Yes," said Phonny, "that was me too; but I did not think that the reins would break."
"I know it," said Wallace. "You did not think. That is the nature of the kind of boyishness that I am speaking of. The boy does not _think_. Men, generally, before they do any new or unusual thing, stop to consider what the results and consequences of it are going to be; but boys go on headlong, and find out what the consequences are when they come."
While Wallace and Phonny had been conversing thus, they had been riding through a wood which extended along a mountain glen. Just at this time they came to a place where a cart path branched off from the main road, toward the right. Phonny proposed to go into this path to see where it would lead. Wallace had no objection to this plan, and so they turned their horses and went in.
The cart path led them by a winding way through the woods for a short distance, along a little dell, and then it descended into a ravine, at the bottom of which there was a foaming torrent tumbling over a very rocky bed. The path by this time became quite a road, though it was a very wild and stony road. It kept near the bank of the brook, continually ascending, until at last it turned suddenly away from the brook, and went up diagonally upon the side of a hill. There were openings in the woods on the lower side of the road, through which Wallace got occasional glimpses of the distant valleys. Wallace was very much interested in these prospects, but Phonny"s attention was wholly occupied as he went along, in looking over all the logs, and rocks, and hollow trees, in search of squirrels.
At last, at a certain turn of the road, the riders came suddenly upon a pair of bars which appeared before them,--directly across the road.
"Well," said Wallace, "here we are, what shall we do now?"
"It is nothing but a pair of bars," said Phonny. "I can jump off and take them down."
"No," said Wallace, "I think we may as well turn about here, and go back. We have come far enough on this road."
Just then Phonny pointed off under the trees of the forest, upon one side, and said in a very eager voice,
"See there!"
"What is it?" said Wallace.
"A trap," said Phonny. "It is a squirrel trap! and it is sprung!