Diverting Diary of an Errant Youth – Part 2
Last week’s post was Part 1 of Leon Allen’s diary of a young boy growing up in Kenilworth in 1903. Here are some more of his adventures.
Part One: Diverting Diary of an Errant Youth – Part 1
October 14, 1903. “Lawrence Horsewell and I found a lot of wild cucumbers this afternoon. They grow on vines in the woods and are not like tame cucumbers. They are round and rusky on the inside with a lot of stickers on the outside. It is lots of fun to peg them at people.”
October 15. “Old Cap. Rooney (the village policeman) wouldn’t chase us today when we pegged wild cucumbers at him so there was nothing exciting to do so we went up the spout. That’s what we call it when we climb the water tower. Going up the spout is very exciting because the ladder on the inside is wet and slippery and the wood is pretty rotten. Then when you get half way up you have to climb out through the window and go up the rest of the way on an iron ladder outside of the tank. The iron ladder is solid but it seems awful high and windy. When you get to the top there is a floor over the tank with just one square hole in it about the size of a window. All around the edge of the floor are posts holding the roof up and under the roof there is another floor. Between the top floor and the roof is a swell room that we use for a clubhouse. The water was up to the top of the tank this afternoon and we dared each other to go in swimming but it was too cold. Its funny we never thought of that last summer.”
October 16. “Of all things, it snowed today. We got a big gang together, Prof. Pole (his name is Eyre Pole and sometimes we call him Air Hole but we usually call him Professor Waldo Beans or Prof. for short because he uses such big words) and a lot of other fellows. We ambushed some of the big kids and pegged snowballs at them. Only the snow had got pretty slushy and it was easier to peg mud balls so they got awful sore and chased us into Van Schacks’ barn. We defended the barn until we ran out of mud balls and then they got in and caught us. Burley Cheney has been to Exeter and he knows some swell tortures that they used on him when he was being hazed so he said lets try them. So the first one was the ‘hot belly.’ To give a kid a hot belly you tie him on his back to a board and pull up his shirt and pack snow on his stomach. Then you take a broom and sweep the snow off his stomach, going round and round, saying ‘here we go round the merry-go- round and once again for the ladies.’ It is very painful torture. So after that we all went home but I bet we will get them to chase us tomorrow and we will keep them out of that barn. I am glad there is some excitement in this town.”
October 17. “There is an awful rumpus in this town. I forgot to say that yesterday while they were giving us the ‘hot belly’ they hung the Prof out of the hay loft window by a rope tied to one of his feet and he hollered something awful and said he would get apoplexy and a lot of things like that so they got interested and watched him but he didn’t get any of these things, so pretty soon they dragged him in. Well it seems that somebody’s mother was at a bridge club or neighbors or something and saw Air Hole hanging out of the window and thought it was a funny thing for a boy to be doing so we all got asked a lot of inquisitive questions. Well we didn’t say much because we were afraid that they would nose into things like they usually do and spoil what little excitement there is in this town but some fellows said more than others did so now they are all saying it is barbarous and cruel and had aught to have a stop put to it.”
October 18. “The big kids started chasing us right after school. So after they chased us up in the barn we got awful scared thinking about that ‘hot belly’ and we ran upstairs. After a while they caught us. Burley Cheney said that in Siberia they torture people by shaving a spot on the top of their heads and let cold water drip on it and it makes them go crazy. So they shaved a bald spot on Lou Van Schack’s head and tied him to a post in the barn and fixed a can of snow and water over his head so it dripped on his bald spot and they all sat around and watched him to see if he would go crazy but Lou didn’t go crazy at all so everybody was much disappointed. The rest of us all jumped out of the window into a manure pile and over Kim Root’s back fence and got away.”