Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1883 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Say, I thonght yoti was going to trj to lead a different life,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as the youth caine in with his pockets fall of angleworms, and wanted to borrow a baking powder can to put them into, while he went fishing, and he held a long angleworm up by the tail and let it wiggle sc it frightened a girl that had come in after 2 cents worth of yeast, so she dropped her pitcher and went out ol the grocery as though she was chased by an anaconda. “I am going to lead a different life, but a boy ean’t change his wholh course of life in a minute, can he? Growr persons have to go on probation for sir months before they can lead a different life, and half the time they lose theii cud before the six months expire, anc have to commence again. When it is so alfired hard for a man that is endowed with sense to break off being bad, yot shouldn't expect too much from a boy. But I am doing as well as could be ex pected. I ain’t half as bad as I was. Gosh, why don’t yon bum a rag. Thai yeast that the girl spilled on the floor, smells like it was sick. I should thifil that bread that was raised with thal yeast would smell like this cooking but ter you sell to hired girls.” “Well, never you mind the cooking butter. I know my business. If pen pie want to use poor butter when thej nave company, and then blow up th« grocer before folks, I can stand it ii they can. But what is this I heai about your pa fighting a duel with the minister in your back yard, and wound ing him in the leg, and then trying tc drown himself in the cistern ?. One oJ your new neighbors was in here this morning and told me there was murder in the air at your house last night, and they were going to have the police pul your place as a disorderly house. 1 think you were at the bottom, of the whole business.” “Oh, it’s all a darn lie, and those neighbors will find they better keej still about us, or we will lie ab3ut then a little. You see, since pa got thal blacking’ on his face he don’t go oul any, and to make it pleasant for hin ma invited in a few friends to spend the evening. Ma has got up around, anc the baby is a daisy, only it smells like t goat, on account of drinking the goat’* milk. Ma invited the minister, among the rest, and after supper the menwenl up into pa’s library to talk. O, yon think I am bad, don’t yon, but of the nine men at onr house last night, I an an angel compared with what they were when they were boys. I got in the bath room to untangle my fish line, and it is next to pa’s room, and I could heat everything they said, but I went awaj ’cause I thought the conversation woulc hurt my morals. They would all steal, when they were boys, but darned if 1 ever stple. Pa has stole over a hundred wagon loads of water-melons, one deacon used to rob orchards, another one shot tame ducks belonging to a farmer, and another tipped over grindstones in front of the village store, at night, and broke them, and run, another used tc steal eggs, and go out in the woods and boil them, and the minister was the worst of the lot, ’cause he tool a seine, with some other boys, and went to a stream where a neighbor was raising brook trout, and cleaned the stream out, and to ward off suspicion, he went to the man the next day and paid him a dollar to let him fish in the stream, and then kicked because there were no trout, and the owner found the trout were stolen and laid it to some Dutch boys. I wondered, when those men were telling their experience, ii they ever thought of it now when thej were preaching and praying, and taking up collections. I should think thej wouldn’t say a boy was going to heil right off ’cause he was a little wild nov days, when he has such an example. Well, lately, somebody has been burg ling our chicken coop, and pa loaded an old musket with rock salt, and said he would fill the fellow full of salt ii he caught him, and while they were talking up stairs ma heard a roostei squawk, and she went to the stairwaj and told pa there was somebody in the ben house. Pa jumped up and told the visitors to follow him, and they would see a man running down the alley full of salt, and he rushed out with the gun, and the crowd followed him. Pa is shorter than the rest, and he passed under the firs! wire clothes-line in the yard all right, and was going for the hen-house on 8 jump, when his neck caught the second wire clothes-line just as the ministei and two of the decons caught theii necks under the other wire. You know how a wire, hitting a man on the throat, will set him back, head over appetite. Well, sir, I was looking out the back window, and I wouldn’t be positive, bu! I think they all turned double back summersaults, and struck on their ears. Anyway, pa did, and the gun must have been cocked, or it struck the hammei on a stone, for it went off, and it wat pointed toward the house, and three oJ the visitors got salted. The ministei pot hit the worst. One piece of salt taking him. in. the hind leg, and the othei in the back, and he yelled as though i! was dynamite. I suppose when you shoot a man with salt, it smarts, like when you get corned beef brine on youi chapped hands. They all yelled, Bnd pa seemed to have been knocked silly, some way, for he pranced around and seemed to think he had killed them. He swore at the wire clothes-line, and then I misssed pa, and heard t splash like when yon throw t cat in the river, and then I though! of the cistern, and I went dowr and we took pa by the collar and pulled him out. Oh, he was awful damp. Nc sir, it was no duel at all, butanaxident, and I didn’t have anything to do with it. The gun wasn’t loaded to kill, and the salt only went through the skin, bu! those men did yell. May be it was mj chum that stirred up the chickens, bu! I don’t know. He has not commenced to lead a different life yet, andhemigh! think it would make our folks sick ii nothing occurred to make them pay at tention. I think where a family ha* been having a good deal of exercise, the way ours has, it hurts them to breal off too suddenly. But the visitors wenl home, real quick, after we got pa out o: the cistern, and the minister told ma h« always felt when he was in our house, as though he was on the verge of i yawning crater, ready to be ingulfed any minute, and he guessed he wouldn’l come any more. Pa changed his clothe* and told ma to have them wire clothe* lines changed for rope ones. I think ii hard to suit pa, don’t you?” “Oh, your pa is all right I What h< needs is rest. But why are you nol working at the livery-stable? Yon haven’t been discharged, have you?’ And the grocery-man laid a little lumj of concentrated lye, that looked lik( m*ple sugar, on a cake of sugar thal

hid been broken, knowing the boy would nibble it. . “No, sir, I was not discharged, but when a livefy-man lends me a kicking horse to take my girl ont riding, that settles it. I asked the boss if I couldn’t have a quiet horse that would drive his-: self if I wound the lines around the whip, and he let me have one he said would go all day without driving. Yon know how it is, when a fellow takes a girl out riding he don’t want his mind occupied holding lines. Well, I got my girl in, and we went out on the Whitefish-Bay road, and it was just before dark, and we rode along under the trees, and I wound the lines around the whip and pat one arm around my girl and patted her under the chin, with my other hand, and her mouth looked so good and her .bine eyes looked up at me and twinkled as much as to dare me to kiss her, and I was all of a tremble, and then my hand wandered around by her ear and I drew her head up to jne and gave her a smack. Say, that was no kind of a horse to give to a young fellow to take a girl out riding. Just as I smacked her I felt as though the buggy had been struck with a pile driver, and when I looked at the horse he was running away and kicking the buggy, and the lines were dragging on the ground. I was scared, I tell you. I wanted to jump out, but my girl threw her arms around my neck and screamed, and said we would die together, and just as we were going to die the buggy struck a fence, and the horse broke loose and went off, leaving us in the buggy, tumbled down by the dash board, but we were not hurt. The horse stopped and went to chewing grass, and he looked up at me as though he wanted to say ‘philopene.’ I tried to catch him, but he wouldn’t catch, and then we waited till dark and walked home, and I told the livery man what I thought of such treatment, and he said if I had attended to my driving, and not kissed the girl, 1 would have been all right. He said I ought to have told him I wanted a horse that wouldn’t shy at kissing, but ho.w did I know I was going to get up courage to kiss her. A livery man ought to take it for granted that when a young fellow goes out with a girl he is going to kiss her, and give him a horse according. But I quit him at once. I won’t work for a man that hasn’t got sense. Gosh! What kind of maple sugar is that? Jerusalem, whew, give me some water. Oh, my! it is taking the skin off my month." The grocery man got him some water and seemed sorry that the boy had taken the lump of concentrated lie by mistake, and when the boy went out the grocery man pounded his hands on his knees and laughed, and presently he went out in front of the store and found a sign: “Fresh Letis, been picked more’n a week, tuffer’n tripe ” — Peck’s Sun.