The Chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann — Joel Chandler Harris

The happiest, the most vivid, and certainly the most critical period of a man's life is combined in the years that stretch between sixteen and twenty-two. His responsibilities do not sit heavily on him, he has hardly begun to realize them, and yet he has begun to see and feel, to observe and absorb; he is for once and for the last time an interested, and yet an irresponsible, spectator of the passing show.