your
enthusiasm and make you young again, an equal and a friend who can lead
your boy where you want him to go and where he will gladly follow you.

For instance, there is in the sixth volume that kindly humorous account
of a boyhood in Wisconsin in the early part of the last century,
_Reminiscences of a Pioneer_ (Volume V, 340). Every man will be
interested in it, and he cannot read it aloud to a boy of seven without
catching the attention of the child. Even a lad of sixteen will get into
the spirit of the thing, although it may not be the same incidents that
will attract him. Think of the contrast between that humble log cabin
with its visiting Indians and the luxurious steam-heated flat of your
son, or the farm house with all modern conveniences that a friend of
yours may have in the very region where our little friend was frightened
more by the strange Dutch immigrants than he was by the red men whom he
saw every day. Think of a six or seven year old boy that had never seen
an apple and who could enjoy chokecherries and crab apples, even though
he couldn't get his face back into line on the same day in which he ate
them fresh from the tree. Think of offering raw turnips to the guests
and of people coming twenty miles to get a small piece of salt pork,
because they were so tired of fresh meat and fish. Think that these
things happened less than a hundred years ago and within forty miles of
the now big and flourishing city of Milwaukee. What lessons there are in
courage, skill, self-reliance and contentment in the lives of these
early pioneers, especially the devoted mother who kept her yeast alive
so many years, and stood off the Indians with one hand while she tended
to her increasing family with the other. Can you imagine a boy who
wouldn't be interested in the sturdy youngster who earned and refused
his first quarter of a dollar for paddling a man across the river in a
heavy dugout? Don't you think your son will have a host of questions to
ask about it all and that you will be glad to talk to him about the
Indians he likes to imitate when he plays? Can't you see that reading
such as this is worth while and that every moment spent in this way is
an investment for yourself in the boy's confidence and good graces?

Other selections of a somewhat similar nature, all of which will appeal
to boys at the time when Indians and adventure are of more interest than
anything else, are the following:

_The Arickara Indians