When You Were a Boy

by Edwin L. Sabin

Hen obligingly cut a caper.

“Aw, gee!” sneered the redoubtable Snoopie, in high scorn. “That ain’t no hand-spring! That’s a cart-wheel! Anybody can turn a cart-wheel! Aw, gee! Lookee here! Here’s the way you did.” He demonstrated. “Lookee!”—and again he demonstrated.—“That’s a reg’lar hand-spring.”

“Well—I can do it, only my back’s lame,” faltered the abashed Hen. “And I can skin the cat, too. Can’t I, John?”

You nodded.

“But I’ve skun it twice, an’ John’s seen me, haven’t you, John?” trumpeted Snoopie.

You nodded confirmation to this, also.

“Yep,” you said; “he did, Hen; truly he did.”

“Without changin’ hands?” insisted Hen.

“Of course,” asserted Snoopie.

Snoopie was accepted.