It isn’t more than twenty-five years since the real out-of-door era began to dawn. I remember distinctly as a boy of ten how hard it was to raise a companion after the evening meal. My parents held liberal views on the subject. They trusted me in the matter of keeping out of mischief and about the only warning I received was, “Don’t go far, and _don’t stay out too late_.” With such elastic instructions I had very little trouble in keeping the record straight, for my parents never held me to strict account. In my meanderings, however, I found the boys of my acquaintance pretty well hemmed in during the evening hours. The scene is easily recalled. The front stoop is plastered with rugs; the mother, father, sisters, aunts, and grandmother are seated about on the steps, hammock or porch chairs. Bob, Bill, Dick or Jim, as the case might be, was first to be noticed leaning against the front gate, or looking dreamily over the side fence. But as soon as the porch arguments began to warm up he could be seen edging along slowly, inch by inch, toward the rear--just nonchalantly, two pickets at a time, without any special semblance of hurrying. If his mother _had the floor_ in the argument he got away speedily and he generally waited for that. But success was not always the case. Many times have I stood impatiently out of view giving the _hurry-up_ signal, when suddenly there came a loud call from the front that caused Robert to fall back into his own yard and walk quickly around to the whenceness of the clamor. “What do you want, Ma?” he would enquire--as if he didn’t thoroughly well know. “I want you to stay around here where I can keep an eye on you. _Then I’ll know where you are._” Sometimes this kind of a backset would require nearly a half hour of skilful jockeying to repair. After that only the boldest of plans stood a chance to succeed, such as walking into the house from the front as if in deep disgust, or after a drink of water in the rear of the house. Then out through the kitchen door and over the back fence in a jiffy. [Illustration: A pointed argument] A nudge from _sister_ often nullified this subterfuge when the mother seemed about to fall for the project, and that meant the loss of another fifteen minutes during which Bobby would actually go and take a swallow of water and come back to the porch, there to stretch and yawn until told that he’d better go in and go to bed. _Victory at last_ for Bob, showing that there was more than one way to win a battle even in those days. The slamming of an upstairs bed-room door, meant for his mother’s ears, a slide down the “rain pipe”--and over the fence for Bobby. But what a wonderful change has come into the parental mind since then. Now all Bob does is to announce where he is going--to the “gym,” over to Bill’s, motor-boating, canoeing, bicycling, a hike in the park, or a look in on the movies. Home and to bed by ten o’clock.