sling shots, build fires before huts in the woods, cook their squirrels and other
game, play Indian, build tree-platforms, where they smoke or troop about some
leader, who may have an old revolver. They find or excavate caves, or perhaps
roof them over; the barn is a blockhouse or a battleship. In the early teens boys
begin to use frozen snowballs or put pebbles in them, or perhaps have stone-
fights between gangs than which no contiguous African tribes could be more
hostile. They become toughs and tantalize policemen and peddlers; "lick" every
enemy or even stranger found alone on their grounds; often smash windows;
begin to use sticks and brass knuckles in their fights; pelt each other with green
apples; carry shillalahs, or perhaps air-rifles. The more plucky arrange fights
beforehand; rifle unoccupied houses; set ambushes for gangs with which they
are at feud; perhaps have secrets and initiations where new boys are triced up by
the legs and butted against trees and rocks. When painted for their Indian fights,
they may grow so excited as to perhaps rush into the water or into the school-
room yelling; mimic the violence of strikes; kindle dangerous bonfires; pelt
policemen, and shout vile nicknames.
The spontaneous tendency to develop social and political organizations among
boys in pubescent years was well seen in a school near Baltimore in the midst of
an eight-hundred-acre farm richly diversified with swamp and forest and
abounding with birds, squirrels, rabbits, etc. Soon after the opening of this
school[27] the boys gathered nuts in parties. When a tree was reached which
others had shaken, an unwritten law soon required those who wished to shake it
further first to pile up all nuts under the tree, while those who failed to do so
were universally regarded as dishonest and every boy's hand was against them.
To pile them involved much labor, so that the second party usually sought fresh
trees, and partial shaking practically gave possession of all the fruits on a tree.
They took birds' eggs freely, and whenever a bird was found in building, or a
squirrel's hole was discovered, the finder tacked his name on the tree and thereby
confirmed his ownership, as he did if he placed a box in which a nest was built.
The ticket must not blow off, and the right at first lasted only one season. In the
rabbit-land every trap that was set preëmpted ground for a fixed number of yards
about it. Some grasping boys soon made many traps and set them all over a
valuable district, so that the common land fell into a few hands. Traps were left
out all winter and simply set the next spring. All these rights finally came into
the ownership of two or three boys, who slowly acquired the right and
bequeathed their claims to others for a consideration, when they left school. The
monopolists often had a large surplus of rabbits which they bartered for
"butters," the unit being the ounce of daily allowance. These could be