My dear children, I am happy to say that all boys who are called bad
boys are not bad boys. There is quite a difference between a bad boy and
a merely mischievous boy. A boy is not necessarily bad because he makes
unearthly noises about the house, or now and then twists the cat’s tail
just to hear her mew, or muddies his clothes in an effort to catch
crawfish. He is not bad just because he likes to “play fantastic” on the
fourth day of July. So many people complain of their boys being bad when
they are only mischievous--that is to say, when they are only full of
life. Some people think that a good boy is one that has a pale face and
looks sickly; one that wears a sanctimonious look and moves along
through the world as though he were afraid to put one foot in front of
the other. That isn’t my kind of a boy. I do not think that kind of a
fellow is a boy at all--he is ’most a girl! A boy who never enjoys a
romp in the woods, who never climbs the apple tree before or after the
apples are ripe, who never plays ball, who will not shoot marbles,
etc.--this sort of a boy usually dies young, or he grows up to be a
“male woman.” I mean by that, that he grows up to be a man who acts like
a woman; and that kind of man is hardly fit for anything.
[Illustration: “PLAY FANTASTIC” ON THE FOURTH OF JULY.]
But there are some bad boys, I am sorry to say--really bad boys, bad in
heart and in deed. I have seen some on the chain gangs; I have seen some
hanging around the street corners--especially on Sundays, with no clean
clothes on; I have seen them smoking cigarettes--and a cigarette is
something which no manly boy will use; I have seen them in saloons,
drinking, playing pool and playing cards; I have sometimes seen them
shooting dice in the street for money. There are probably one thousand
boys in the jails, reformatories and in the penitentiaries in the single
state of Georgia. To form anything like an adequate estimate of the
total number of bad boys in the South we must add to the above number
the boys imprisoned in the other states; and, also, that much larger
number who have never been imprisoned because they happen never to have
been arrested, or who have been arrested and have had their fines paid
in money; and, finally, we must add those who have already served their
time and are again at large. So, you see, there are many thousands and
thousands of bad boys in the world, and they are very easily found. Are
you a bad boy or a good boy? Isn’t it better to be a good boy than to be
a bad boy?