The Stool Dispute of Eighth Street
A brief, charming standoff between two children in a Walla Walla front yard captured by local gossip.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Yesterday afternoon a little girl eight or nine years old was engaged in playing in a front yard on Eighth street. A boy about the same age passed along the sidewalk and picked up a stool lying near the gate. Girl: 'Put down that stool.' Boy: 'No, I won't.' Girl in a decided tone: 'Put it down; I tell you it's mine.' Boy: 'I won't do it.' Girl with emphasis, stepping to the gate: 'If you don't drop that stool I'll call my brother right away and tell him what you are doing.' Boy: 'Who is your brother? Is he big?' Girl emphatically: 'Yes, he is.' Boy, dropping the stool and walking off: 'I don't want it. What do I want with your stool?' The girl recaptures her property, and the boy disappears around the corner.
“If you don't drop that stool I'll call my brother right away and tell him what you are doing.”
This vignette of neighborhood life on Eighth Street shows that even in a booming 1864 frontier town, the dynamics of childhood territoriality remained a point of local amusement. It serves as a reminder that history is made not just by miners and merchants, but by the ordinary interactions of residents in the neighborhoods that still stand today.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.