Publisher's Synopsis
Those who knew them during the days of their childhood and youth, differ widely in opinion concerning the character of the promise they gave of their future course in life. Some say they were "nice, well behaved boys," others that "they were about like other boys," and yet another class say that they were "bad boys, very bad boys from the beginning." There is no doubt that they were sometimes "a little wild," as their best friends admit. We have accounts of some of their childish actions which indicate that even in early life they manifested a decided inclination to be malicious, not to say heartless and cruel.
The step-father of the boys seems to be a man of amiable disposition, and his government over the children was far from being after the order of the traditional step-father. The consequence was Frank and Jesse advanced to the years of maturity without any of those healthful, restraining influences which moralists assure us are essential to the proper development of the higher qualities of manhood. Be that as it may, we have been assured by persons of the highest respectability, who were acquainted with them long before the commencement of the war between the States, that "they were their own masters" at a very early age, save only when their strong-willed mother asserted her prerogative to dominate over them, which, by the way, she seldom did. Among the boys of the neighborhood they were not without friends. But among them, they were leaders. Aside from a willingness on the part of other boys to accept such leadership, the Jameses were exceedingly disagreeable, and generally attempted to enforce a due recognition of their superiority. Such were the great outlaws as boys.
