To Would-be Runaways.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 82, 27 December 1884, Page 5

To Would-be Runaways.

Sage Advice to Youthful Aspirants for Gek vter Glories than they Have at HOMii. Come, now, my lad, but you want to run away. No boy ever yet reached the age of 15 without having several timeß firmly resolved to leave home. When a boy has made up his mind to a thing of this sort he ought to carry it out by all means. The first step in the programme is to begin saving up bread and meat. When you have a bushel or so of provisions hidden in the barn or under the woodshed, you are ready for the battle with the cold world. Make your start at night. This will prevent the sun from tanning your complexion, and you will be quite certain of the company of a tramp or two. Some boy 8 leave a note pinned to the pillow of their bed. This note goes on to say that the boy has been jawed, bulldozed, starved, pounded, and knocked down and dragged out, until he has made up his mind to sever the connection. He will never be heard of more. It is probably the best way to leave a note of this kind, as the family are then made to fully realise their cruelty in driving the poor boy out among strangers. When you have packed your little bundle and are off it will be well to settle upon some plan for the future. Perhaps you want to be a sailor? Nothing is easier. Make your way to some lake or seaport, and most any captain will take you. If he can't disgust you with the sailoring business in a week, tar buckets, seasickness, poor provisions, then a rope's end will be called upon to assist him. Perhaps you want to become a mighty hunter ? Mighty hunters are not made in a few days or weeks. You want to begin by letting your hair and finger nails grow, sleeping in a swamp, and wasting $20 worth of ammunition to kill a ten -cent chipmunk. Ifyouhavedecidedto becomea bank clerk, well and good. Make traoks for the nearest city, and the first bank you enter will jump at the chance of employing you at a salary of $200 per month, If it should so happen that the bank didn't do any jumping as you made your application, you can console yourself with the reflection that it is about to bust. But, speaking in all seriousness, my boy, if I had a dozen sons I should be glad to have each and every one of them take his turn at running away from home. It is the best cure in the world for that disease called 1 ' swellhead. " There's a heap of romance i i the idea of running away. You think of the sparkling sea, the green prairies, coral strands, robbers' caves, and pirates' treasures. You feel that you know so much more than your father that it is a waste of brains for both of you to remain in the same house. You have been forced to go to school, and have been ordered to split wood, and go to the grocery after butter like a common slave. Don't stand it any longer ! Pick up your duds and leave the house and go forth into the world. What ' Come to a full stop in the road before you are a mile away ! You've got a peck or more of sour meat and mouldy bread in a pillow case, seventeen cents in your pocket, and just think how your father and mother have misused you at home ! The romance begins to wear off, eh 1 You don't care half as much about mermaids and palm groves and pirate ships as you did an hour ago. You hate to leave mother after all, and perhaps father isn't so much to blame for bossing you around. Come to think it all over, perhaps you'd better return home and try and stand it for a few more weeks. Ah ! my son, but we've all been there ! All these wrinkled, and dignified, and buUJheaded old men you meet on the streets have had jybout the same experience. We've had that same period of "swellhead," and eight out of ten of us have packed our bundles and slid out to escape parental tyranny. Eight out of ten of us have slipped back again, too, and the experience was the right sort of medicine for the disease. Any time you come to feel that you are a poor, over-worked, and downtrodden boy, and that if you only had a tair show you'd know more in a minute than your father does in an hour, juet skip. There's nothing like it.