In Caxton adolescent love had about it a virility befitting a land that
raised so many bushels of yellow corn and drove so many fat steers through
the streets to be loaded upon cars. Men and women went their ways
believing, with characteristic American what-boots-it attitude toward the
needs of childhood, that it was well for growing boys and girls to be much
alone together. To leave them alone together was a principle with them.
When a young man called upon his sweetheart, her parents sat in the
presence of the two with apologetic eyes and presently disappeared leaving
them alone together. When boys' and girls' parties were given in Caxton
houses, parents went away leaving the children to shift for themselves.
"Now have a good time and don't tear the house down," they said, going off
upstairs.
Left to themselves the children played kissing games and young men and
tall half-formed girls sat on the front porches in the darkness, thrilled
and half frightened, getting through their instincts, crudely and without
guidance, their first peep at the mystery of life. They kissed
passionately and the young men, walking home, lay upon their beds fevered
and unnaturally aroused, thinking thoughts.
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