Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

$0 THIS IS - They descended, and smoked for a while upon the piazza. A wide sweep of ocean was visible from here, as well as most of the village, since the old Hendrie place sat upon a gentle rise. _ Already the Slapper had lost interest. In the silence, his thoughts tracked back to his own problem. Then he was interrupted by the voice of his host. “What do you make out they are do- ing?” The Slapper followed the other’s point- ing finger, and beheld two kittens in the yard below. = “ Why—just playing,” he said, surprised at the foolish query. —** Exactly! Playing But howe Notice how one rolls over on his back, clasps the other around the neck, and then kicks with his hind legs? That’s how lions and tigers fight. disembowels his foe that way! And why does that smaller cat creep up on his belly toward the other, inch by inch, all tensed for a spring? Because by and by he will hunt that way. He knows he isn’t fooling the other kitten; but he pretends he is.” The older man smoked silently for a few - minutes and then broke out, abruptly: “Pretending. ‘That’s all play really i is. It is nature’s way of training the young ones for life. Small boys pretend to keep store. Little girls have dolls, and pretend to keep house. When they grow up, they stop playing; not because they are tired of it, but because the boy now has a reai store, and the girl has a baby and a home of her own.’ He looked keenly at the Slapper. - “You like youngsters, don’t you “Veah. It ain’t so long since I was ped- dling me papers!” Hendrie nodded. “T never pass a group of kids without wishing I had the vision of a prophet. Then I'd look at smutty faced little Larry, and see on his head a bishop’s miter. And the lad with a slungshot and two stone bruises I'd recognize as General Smith, destined in good time to save his country from extinc- tion in the days of the great invasion. Chil- dren are America! If you were to go to 7? sleep for fifteen years, what would you find Only, instead of just pretending, he WEDLOCK! on waking up? Why, that the little boys — and girls you had seen raising hob up and — dawn. the neighborhood are running the country! arrested, and you’d take orders from some- body you’d chased out of your yard the. night you had fallen asleep—fifteen eS before.” -*"'Thasso,” the Slapper yawned. . what’s the answer?” “T wish I knew,” confessed Hendrie. * But I know this much: the sort of coun-— try we are going to have will depend on the sort of children we are raising. Nothing’s too good for them. And that’s why I want to do my little bit. Listen!” He hitched his chair closer. SS But “ This is a horrible place, to me; I come back to it from habit. Because I was born — here. But to a lot of kids, it wouldn’t look so bad, with that unspeakable furniture re-— placed by a flock of little cots, and some ~ unbreakable chairs and Jammocks and things. There’s fifty acres with it, and — plenty of trees to climb, and the Atlantic SS Policemen and aldermen, mayors = and Senators; you’d consult one if you were ill, and retain another if you got yourself _ Ocean for a front yard. Just what young- sters need. Do you know that ninety per = = cent of the men that have amounted to any- — thing were born in the country? dt puts marrow into their bones, somehow. And I~ want to see this place overrun with small boys from the city who never saw any ¢ grass — without a ‘ keep off’ sign close by. | “Tm counted rich here. But I wouldn’t be, in your. town. But 1 can do a_little. = can turn this place over to the urchins; say averaging ten years apiece. Give ’em all - they can eat of the best country fare; pitch — ers of unskimmed milk; hamper them with no unnecessary rules. Let ’em play their own way. If they want. to fight, let “em! Why not? They'll -have to, some dag Only, some one must be hare to see that a they fight clean. I would have said, to see that a big boy doesn’t fight a little one; but after what you did to Micah at the “picnic, I hesitate to put it that way.” The major chuckled, and the Sapper lighted another piparetie to. cover his: en = harrassment. = About twenty, lads ould be put up