the flotsam and jetsam of his establishment, but had just swept up
enough off the floor to make a good assorted boxful. I think the
oldest inhabitant had probably dropped in that day to have himself
trimmed up a little round the edges. I seem to remember a quantity
of sandy whiskers shot with gray. There was enough hair in that
box and enough different kinds and colors of hair and stuff to
satisfy almost any taste, you would have thought, but my mother and
aunt were anything but satisfied. On the contrary, far from it.
And yet my cousin's hair was all there, if they had only been
willing to spend a few days sorting it out and separating it from
the other contents.

In this particular instance I was the exception to the rule, that
hair generally gives a boy no great trouble from the time he merges
out of babyhood until he puts on long pants and begins to discern
something strangely and subtly attractive about the sex described
by Mr. Kipling as being the more deadly of the species. During
this interim it is a matter of no moment to a boy whether he goes
shaggy or cropped, shorn or unshorn. At intervals a frugal parent
trims him to see if both his ears are still there, or else a barber
does it with more thoroughness, often recovering small articles of
household use that have been mysteriously missing for months; but
in the main he goes along carefree and unbarbered, not greatly
concerned with putting anything in his head or taking anything off
of it.

In due season, though, he reaches the age where adolescent whiskers
and young romance begin to sprout out on him simultaneously--and
from that moment on for the rest of his life his hair is giving him
bother, and plenty of it.