Life, 1925-02-19 · page 10 of 37
Life — February 19, 1925 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a serialized children's adventure story titled "The Rover Boys in the Snow: Or A Merry Romp and Its Consequences." The main feature is a series of comic illustrations captioned "THE PHYSICAL CULTURIST'S CHILD," depicting a young boy performing various athletic and gymnastic poses—stretching, balancing, tumbling, and exercising with an adult male figure. The satire targets the "physical culture" movement popular in early 20th-century America, which promoted rigorous exercise and physical development. The joke appears to be that an overzealous physical culturist has subjected his child to excessive, sometimes absurd athletic training, turning the boy into a contorted, hyperflexible performer rather than allowing normal childhood play. It mocks the era's obsession with scientific fitness applied to children.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
‘LIFE : ’ The Rover Boys in the Snow “ INTER is here!" cried Sam, bounding out of bed with a cheer, “Where?” came back Tom merrily. “In the pig’s eye!” replicd Sam, play- fully ramming a large handful of snow down his brother's { Tom re- taliated by pitching him through the window, and the fun was on. “Wake Dick!" Tom shouted, packing a snowball in which he had cleverly concealed a portion of lead- piping. “Let's go skii “We ought to study,” obje seriously. “We've been here Hall now for twenty-eight years, as re- lated in the Rover Boys Series, volumes mas. up, ed Dick Putnam Or: A Merry Romp and Its Consequences 1-367. It's time we buckled down and graduated.” “If we graduate it will stop the se- rics,” said Tom merrily, amd he strapped on his snowshoes and skis and led the chase to the mountain-top. “One to make ready, two for a show, Three to get set, and four to go!” shouted Captain Putnam. Owing to a taut piece of wire which Tom had cleverly stretched part-way across the path, the Rover Boys soon outdistanced their rivals. As they cata- pulted amid flying snow-crystals they found themselves skiing rapidly down a long, dull, descriptive paragraph, when suddenly crash! they shot through a THE PHYSICAL CULTURIST’S window and brought up against a stone fireplace. “Hark!” harked Dick. “Do you hear anything?” They listened carefully. From the next room came the sound of smashing and shouting, followed by shots and several blows as from a blunt instrument, like a Boy Scout knife. “Something is wrong!" Dick decided; and just then some one hit him on the head and he knew no more; in fact, not as much. Chapter Thirty-Six “Tom! Sam!” “Dick! Tom!” “Sam! Dick!” Dick made a rapid computation, “We are all here!” he finally decided, and removed his blindfold. Pop! pop! went his eyes at what he saw; for there in the room, tied and bound, were Dora Stanhope and Nellie and Grace Laning, Uncle Randolph, and several other characters you would recognize in an instant if I named them. It's that horrid Dan Baxter,” ex- plained Dora. “He captured us. “This is his counterfeiter’s den,” ex- plained Nellie, pointing to the heaps of five-dollar gold pieces on the floor with Dan Baxter's initials on-them. “He has set the woods on fire,” ex- plained Grace. “Save us!” The roaring wind bore the flames down upon the old farmhouse and the place seemed doomed, when Tom sud- denly had an idea. Doffing his coa he ran to the roof, seized the weather- vane and turned it in the nick of time, deflecting the wind and saving the house from the onrushing flames. “Hurrah for the Rover Boys!” Dora. “They're all right!” “WHO'S all right?” shouted the rest But the answer to this question and many others, including where to park your car in the theatrical district and how’s your uncle, will not be disclosed until the next volume, to be entitled: “The Rover Boys in Brooklyn; or, How Tom Escaped from the Nordics.” And here let us say Good-by. Goop-sy. Corey Ford, cried “| THINK Mrs. Simpson is such a sweet-looking little woman.” “I don’t like her very well, either.” comicbooks.com