Allie R.
Perhaps you think you would rather stay at home than take that long walk; but your mother is right. School days are very happy ones, and your little feet skip over the two miles quickly, do they not? Have you any little friends who go with you to school?
Fred M. Dille, Greeley, Colorado, desires the name of a boy living in Cincinnati who sent him a match-box containing fossils, shells, and minerals, that he may send specimens in return.
C. Y. P. R. U.
A Boy's Grievance.—A boy of fourteen complains to us that his mother treats him as if he were a baby. He says she forbids his going to a certain safe and pleasant lake, to bathe or swim, and that she will not consent to his taking trips into the country with two friends of his own age, who are splendid fellows.
No doubt it seems to this lad that his mother is a little bit unreasonable. But she may have a strong feeling of terror about the deep waters of the lake which he thinks so safe, and if, as I judge from his note, he is really a kind and manly boy, he would prefer to go without the pleasure of swimming rather than make his mother anxious or uneasy about him.
Ladies are sometimes more timid than there is any need to be about places and things which boys and men consider entirely free from danger. Yet a gentleman always prefers to yield his own wishes rather than to let his mother or sister suffer from alarm.
As for the out-of-town trips, the mother's objection might be removed if the boys would get some older friend to go with them. It is always well to take the advice of mothers with regard to friends. Boys think they can choose wisely for themselves, but they are not able, as older persons are, to see just what companions are best for them. I do not think you would complain of home restraints if you remembered how much the dear mother has done for you all your life. No love is so unselfish as a mother's, and we can not prize it too highly.