1 Porch swing.
REMARKS:
This lesson is relegated to the use of the kiddies; it is good for very little else. In this day of experience and the single standard it is passé, and I include it more as a curiosity than anything else. The beginner should know the fundamental principles, at any rate. For older participants in the game who wish to try their luck along these lines, I suggest more restraint. A few dark hints will go farther than any amount of explicit description. The imagination of an innocent girl can work wonders with a very slight encouragement.
I’M BAD
“But it is different,” says the little girl, with an eager note in her voice. You give up the argument for a time and sit in silence, hearing only the creaking of the porch swing’s chain above the noises of the summer night.
She takes up the conversation again.
“I mean that supposing I should want to do all those things—some girls do, you know—well, I couldn’t. Of course it isn’t likely I should want to. I don’t see any fun in hanging on to the under part of a train——”
“Riding the blinds,” you say, patiently.
“All right; riding the blinds. But there might be something. Like—like staying up all night, perhaps, when it isn’t New Year’s. Bob used to do that. Mother didn’t think it was particularly terrible if he just said he was studying, but I can’t even do that. It isn’t fair. Here I am a senior in high school and practically grown up and they’ll always treat me like a baby just because I’m a girl.”
“Yeah,” say, as she stops for breath, “it’s a shame.” And this is as far as your sympathy goes. After all there isn’t much else to say. Nevertheless she feels slightly resentful.