An Oshkosh young man started for a picnic in a buggy with two girls, and
when they got half way they got a hot box to the hind wheel of the buggy,
and they remained there all the afternoon pouring water on the wheel,
missing the picnic. There is nothing that will cause a hot box in a buggy
so quick as going to a picnic with girls. Particularly is this the case
when one has two girls. No young man should ever take two girls to a
picnic. He may think one cannot have too much of a good thing, and that he
holds over the most of the boys who have only one girl, but before the
picnic is over he will note the look of satisfaction on the faces of the
other boys as they stray off in the vernal shade, and he will look around
at his two girls as though his stomach was overloaded. We don't care how
attractive the girls are, or how enterprising a boy he is, or how
expansive or far-reaching a mind he has, he cannot do justice to the
subject if he has two girls. There will be a certain clashing of interests
that no young boy in his goslinghood, as most boys are when they take two
girls to a picnic, has the diplomacy to prevent. Now, this may seem a
trifling thing to write about and for a great pious paper to publish, but
there is more at the bottom of it than is generally believed. If we start
the youth of the land out right in the first place they are all right, but
if they start out by taking two girls to a picnic, their whole lives are
liable to become acidulated, and they will grow up hating themselves. If a
young man is good natured and tries to do the fair thing, and a picnic is
got up, and the rest of the boys are liable to play it on him. There is
always some old back number of a girl who has no fellow, who wants to go,
and the boys, after they all get girls and buggies engaged, will canvass
among themselves to see who shall take this extra girl, and it always
falls to the good-natured young man. He says of course there is
room for three in the buggy. Sometimes he thinks may be this old girl can
be utilized to drive the horse, and then he can converse with his own
sweet girl with both hands, but in such a moment as ye think not, he finds
out that the extra girl is afraid of horses, dare not drive, and really
requires some holding to keep her nerves quiet. The young man begins to
realize by this time that life is one great disappointment. He tries to
drive with one hand, and consoles his good girl, who is a little cross at
the turn affairs have taken, with the other, but it is a failure, and
finally his good girl says she will drive, and then he has to put an arm
around them both, which will give more or less dissatisfaction the best
way you can fix it. If we had a boy that didn't seem to have any more
sense than to make a hat rack of himself to hang girls on in a buggy, we
should labor with him, and tell him of the agonies we had
experienced in youth, when the boys palmed off two girls on us to take to
a country picnic, and we believe we can do no greater favor to the young
men who are just entering the picnic of life than to impress upon them the
importance of doing one thing at a time, and doing it well. Start right at
first, and life will be one continued picnic buggy ride, but if your mind
is divided in youth you will always be looking for hot boxes and
annoyance.
[Illustration: THE OLD BACK NUMBER GIRL.]