No place for boys

What can a boy do, and where can a boy stay.

If he is always told to get out of the way?

He can not sit here, and he must not stand there:

The cushions that cover that fine rocking-chair Were put there, of course, to be seen and admired.

A boy has no business to ever be tired.

The beautiful roses and flowers that bloom On the floor of the darkened and delicate room Are not made to walk on,— at least not by boys;

The house is no place, anyway, for their noise.

Yet boys must walk somewhere; and what if their feet,

Sent out of our houses, sent into the street,

Should, step round the corner, and pause at the door Where other boys' feet have paused often before.

Ah, what if they should? What if your boy or mine Should cross o'er the threshold which marks out the line

'Twixt virtue and vice, ’twixt pureness and sin,

And leave all his innocent boyhood within?

O, what if they should, because you and I:

While the days and the months and the years hurry by

Are too busy with cares and with life's fleeting joys To make our round hearthstone a place for the boys?
 

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