Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1883 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Alt, ia, fffl We go* Jon* desert* at last,” said the grocerjitod to the bad boy, as he came in 'with one tifo blaekf and his noee peeled on one side, and set on a board across’the Coni shuttle, siid began Whistling as unconcerned as possible.- What’s the matte# with ytivct eye ?” “Boy tried to goitge ft Adt j wiftotat asking my consent,” and the bad bor took a dried herring out of the box ana began peeling it. “He is in bed now, ftnd his ma is poulticing him, and she says he wfli be eut about the last of next week.” “Oh, you are going to be a prize' fighter, ain’t yon,” said the groeeryman, disgusted. “When a boy leaves a job where he is working, and goes to loading around,- he becomes a fighter the first thing. What ydttf p» ought to do is bind you out with a farmer,- where you would have to work all the time. I Wish you would go away from here, beC&nse ymrlook like one of these fellows that bothies up before the Police Judge jdftodSf.mbrning; and .gets thirty days fn the House dt GortetMm* Why don’t you go out ancf 16af ar Oftliicl house, where you would l6ok appropriate?” and the groeeryman took a hairbrush »nd brushed some loose sugar and tea, that was Of! the counter, into the sugar-barrel. “Well, if you have got through With your sermon, I will toot a little on my horn,* and the boy threw the remains 6f thd herring over behind ft barrel of potatoes, ana Wiped hie hands on a coffee sack. “If you had this .black eye and had got it the way I did, it Wduld be a more priceless gem in the crown of glorf you nope to wear, than any gem you can get by putting quarters in the collection plate with th© holes filled with lead, as you did last Sunday, when I was watching you. Oh, didn t you! look pious when you picked that filibd quarter out, and held your thumb 6ver the pfybe Where the lead was. The Way of the black eye Waft this. I got a jtrh tending a soda fotintam, tod last night, just before we closed, there waft two or three young loafers in the place, and a girl came in for a gifts* of soda. Five years ago she was one of the brightest scholars in the ward school, When I was in the intermediate department. &he Wfts just as handsome as a pCach, and everybody liked her. At rfte'ftss fthe used to take' my part when the hoys knocked me around, ana she lived near us. &bre had a heart as big as that cheese box, and I guess that’s what’s the matter. Anyway she left School, and thep it was said she was going to be married to a fellow who is now in the dude business, but he went back on her and after a while her ma turned her out doors, and for a year or two she was jerking beer in a concert saloon, until the Mayo* stopped concerts. She tried hard .tp get sewing to do, but they wouldn’t ha-te her, I guess, ‘cause she cried so much when She was sewing* and the tears wet the cloth she Waft sewing on.- Once I asked pa why ma didn’t give her some sewing to do, and he said for m,e to dry up and never speak to her if 1 met be# On the street. It seemed tuff to pass be# on tbe street, when she had tears in he# eyes as big Ss marbles, and not speak to her when I know her so well, and she had been so kind to me at school, just ’cause a dude wouldn’t marry her, but I wanted to Obey pa, so I used to walk around a block when I see her coming, ’cause I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Well, iast night she came in the store, looking pretty shabby, and wanted a glass pf soda, and I gave it to her, ana Oh, hbw her hand trembled when she raised the glass to her lips, and hoW wet ber eyes were, and how pftle he# face Was! I choked up so I couldn’t speak when she handed me the nickel, and when she looked np at me and smiled just like she used to, and said I was getting to be almost a mdn since we went to s {shoot at the Qld schpol-house, And put her handkerchief to her eyes, by goSh, my eyes got so full I couldn’t tell whether it was a nickel or a lozenger she gave me. Just then one of those loafers began to latlgh at her, and call her names, and say the police otlght to take her up for a stray, and he made fun of her until she cried some more, and I got hot and went around to where he was end told him if he said another unkind word to that girl I would maul him. He laughed and asked if she was my sister, and I told him that a poor, friendless girl, who was sick and in distress, tod who Was insulted, ought to be every boy’s sister, for a minute, and any boy who had a spark of manhood should protect her, and then he laughed and said I ought to be one of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and he took hold -of her faded ■bawl and pulled the weak girl against the show-case, and said something mean !to her, and she looked as though she wanted to die, and I mashed that boy one right on the nose. Well, the air seemed to be full of me for a minute, cause lio was bigger than me, and he got toe down and got his thumb in my eye. I guess he was going to take my eye out, but I turned him over and got on top and I mauled him until he begged, but I wouldn’t let him up till he asked the girl’s pardon, and swore he would whip any boy that insulted her, and then I let him np, and the girl thanked me, but I told her I couldn’t speak to her, cause she was tuff, and pa didn’t want me to speak to anybody who was tuff, but if anybody ever insulted ber so she had to cry, that I would whip him if I had to take a club. I told pa about it, and I thought he would be mad at me for taking the part of a girl that was tuff, but by gosh, pa hugged me, and the tears come in his eyes, and he said I had got good blood in me, and I did just right, and if I would show him the father of the boy that I whipped, pa said he would whip the old man, and ma said for me to find the poor girl and send her np to the house and she would give her a job making pillow-cases and night shirts. Don’t it seem darn queer to you that everybody goes back on a poor girl cause she makes a mistake, the blasted whelp that is to blame gets a ehromo. It makes me tired to think of it,” and the boy got up and shook himself, and looked in the cracked mirror hanging upon a post, to see how his eye was getting along.

“Say, young fellow, you are a thoroughbred,” said the groceryman, as he sprinkled some water on the asparagus and lettuce, “and you can come in here and get all the herring you want, and never mind the black eye. I wish I had it myself. Yes, it does seem tough to see people never allow a girl to reform. Now, in Bible times, the Savior forgave Mary, or somebody, I forget now what her name was, and she was a better girl than ever. What we need is more of the spirit of Qhrist, and the world would be better.”

“What we want is about 10,000 teen right here in Milwaukee, ana vney would find plenty of business, too. tbit this climate seems to be too rough. Say, did I tell you pa and ma are having trouble I” “No, what’s the rOW?” • “Well, yon see, ma wants to economize all she can, and pa has beeil gfetting thinner since he quit drinking ana reformed, tod I have kept on growing ttotil Into bigger than he is. Funny, ain’t it, that a boy should be bigger than his pa? Pa Wanted a new suit of clothes, and ma said she wefrild fix- him, and so she took one of my old suite and made it ove# for pa, and he wore ' tbfeto a week before he knew it was an old suit to’ade otef, bttt one day he found a handful of dried-up angleworms in the pistol pocket that I had, fOrgot when I was fisning, and pa laid the angleworms to ma, and ma had to explain that she made over one of toy old suits for pa. He was mad, and took them off and threw them ottt the back window, and swore he would neve# humiliate himself bv wearing hie son’s old clothes. Ma tried to reason with him, but he was awful worked up and said he was no old charity hospital, and he stormed around to find his old suit of clothes, but ma had sold them to a plaster of pans image peddler, and pa hadn’t anything to wear, and he wanted ma to go out in the alley and pick np the suit he threw out the window, but a rag-man had picked them up and was going away, and pa he grabbed a linen duster and put it on ana went out after the rag-picker, and he run and pa after him, and the rag-man told a policeman there was an escaped lunatic from the asylum tod he was chasing people all over the city, and the policeman took him to the police-station. Ma and me had to go down and bail him out, and the»police lent us a tarpaulin to put ove# pa, and we got him home, and he is wearing his summer pants while the tailor makes him ft hew pair of clothes. I think pa is too excitable and too particular. I never kicked on wearing pa’s old clothes, and I think he ought to wear mine now. Well, I must go down to the sweetened-wind factory and jerk soda,” and the boy went out and hung up a sign in front of the store, “Spinage, for greens, that the cat has made a nest in over Sunday.”— Peck's Sun.