These Were The
Hardest Of All To Decline, And Each Time I Declined One It Seemed As
If I Had Struck Youth A Slap In The Face.
They were so earnest,
these boys, they wanted so much to go.
"I am sixteen but large for
my age," said one; and another, "Seventeen but large and healthy."
"I am as strong at least as the average boy of my size," said an
evident weakling. "Not afraid of any kind of work," was what many
said, while one in particular, to lure me no doubt by
inexpensiveness, wrote: "I can pay my way to the Pacific coast, so
that part would probably be acceptable to you." "Going around the
world is THE ONE THING I want to do," said one, and it seemed to be
the one thing that a few hundred wanted to do. "I have no one who
cares whether I go or not," was the pathetic note sounded by
another. One had sent his photograph, and speaking of it, said,
"I'm a homely-looking sort of a chap, but looks don't always count."
And I am confident that the lad who wrote the following would have
turned out all right: "My age is 19 years, but I am rather small
and consequently won't take up much room, but I'm tough as the
devil." And there was one thirteen-year-old applicant that Charmian
and I fell in love with, and it nearly broke our hearts to refuse
him.
But it must not be imagined that most of my volunteers were boys; on
the contrary, boys constituted a very small proportion.
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