When You Were a Boy

by Edwin L. Sabin

This simulated wonder is your part of the program—your voluntary part, that is.

“John, I ask you if you put that pin there,” reiterates the persistent examiner, judge, and executioner.

And now that the glamour of the deed has faded, how you wish that you had not! For the voluntary part of the program is always followed by an involuntary part.

All in all, the possession of a state in these united states is fraught with peril. So much is prohibited. It is unlawful to have a poor memory or a dull brain or a careless tongue; it is unlawful to carry on intercourse, either written or oral or by signs, with neighbor states; it is unlawful to import articles for consumption—such as cinnamon drops, or lemon drops, or jujube, or licorice; while to import gum is a capital offense.

Nevertheless, gum is imported and secreted by being stuck to the inner surface of the desk-top, thence to be peeled off at recess and at closing-time, and chewed. Sometimes it is forgotten, and the janitor contemptuously scrapes it to the floor for his dust-heap, or a successor to you rapturously finds it. Whenever one moves into a new state, one runs a pleasurable chance of discovering a gum-deposit.

The principal penalties are “stayin’-after-school,” “gettin’-sent-home,” and “lickin’s.”

It is the close of a day in this despotic monarchy, and the despot has tapped her bell for books to be put away. The next tap will mean dismissal; but between taps comes the allotment of punishments.

You reflect—and regret. There was once during the day when you asked Billy Lunt if he had “the first example.” You whispered it very circumspectly, but the unruly sibilants in your tones somehow spread into the open. “Teacher” pricked her ears in your direction, and with her pencil she apparently made a memorandum upon her ready slip.

Was it your name she jotted? Or was it Billy’s? He was in the act of showing you his slate. You are ungenerous enough to hope that it was Billy’s.

In the meantime you hold your breath (as, in similar anxiety, round about you do your compatriots, save the goody-goodies and the “teacher’s pets,” whose names never are read) and listen.