Fortunately
we never hurt any of them that we knew of. We also dug holes in the
ground, put in a handful or two of powder, tamped it well around a
fuse made of a wheat-stalk, and, reaching cautiously forward, touched
a match to the straw. This we called making earthquakes. Oftentimes we
went home with singed hair and faces well peppered with powder-grains
that could not be washed out. Then, of course, came a correspondingly
severe punishment from both father and teacher.
Another favorite sport was climbing trees and scaling garden-walls.
Boys eight or ten years of age could get over almost any wall by
standing on each other's shoulders, thus making living ladders. To
make walls secure against marauders, many of them were finished on top
with broken bottles imbedded in lime, leaving the cutting edges
sticking up; but with bunches of grass and weeds we could sit or stand
in comfort on top of the jaggedest of them.
Like squirrels that begin to eat nuts before they are ripe, we began
to eat apples about as soon as they were formed, causing, of course,
desperate gastric disturbances to be cured by castor oil.
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