Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1883 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Well, well,’ remarked the grocery -nan as the boy came into the store and sat up on the edge of the counter, “you ioom up well for a boy with the ague. [ thought you couldn’t get out of bed, sou haven’t been around for nearly a week.” “Oh, the ague’s played out. I guess they run out of . quinine in this town while I was sick. Any how they A re d nearly a barrel of it down my neck,” replied the boy, helping himself to an >pple. “I beard your father was arrested last Saturday. What’s the trouble?” asked the grocery man as he closed a new gate at the end of the counter he had made to keep the boy away from the sugar bin. “Well, he did come near being run in, sure, and I guess he would if it hadn’t been for me. You see ma has been sick ever since she went into the deacon’s cellar to draw cider and met that skunk, so she told pa if he would get a couple of good fat hens, she would try and make a pot-pie for Sunday, as she i felt her health failing, and if her appe- | tite didn’t improve soon she would go hence, whatever that means. So that evening pa started out after hens. He was too late to get dressed ones, so he got two live ones from the market and started home. Me and my chum were layin’ for him, and when he got about half way home it commenced to rain and he started on a run so as to not get wet. We followed and met a policeman and told him we saw a man steal two hens, and pointed pa out as the man. The policeman started after him and yelled at him to halt, but pa did not hear him. Pretty soon pa saw some one was chasing him, and thought it was a robbei, so he ran all the harder. Then the policeman puUed out his revolver and fired in the air to scare pa, just as one of the hens got her wings loose and flopped it in pa’s eye. Pa dropped with a groan and said: ‘l’m shot. Tell my wife I died happy.’ Then a crowd got around him and was a-going to hang the pcl.ceman, but he swore the shot came across the street for he saw two men run, and said he didn’t carry a revolver anyway, and the crowd might search him. But I saw him throw it over in a yard and me and my chum got it the next morning. When pa found he wasn’t dead, he called for a stretcher to be carr ed home to die with his family. While some of the crowd went for the stretcher, the rest began to examine him to see where the bullet went in, and when they couldn’t find it, he got up and offered to lick any man that said he was shot. Just then another policeman came up and said he recognized pa as ‘Chicago Bill,’ a notorious safe-robber and that a reward was offered for him. Pa said he was an honest man and agreed to go back to the market with ihe chickens and be identified. They found only one of the the chickens, but the market man knew pa and fixed it, and then the policeman began to beg pa’s pardon and pa gave him $5 to keep still about it. When pa got home he told ma how he had helped catch a safe-blower and when he got his share of the reward she could have anew seal-skin sacque.”

“Your father’ll kill you some day. But what about that fuss at the social at the deacon’s night before last?” asked the groceryman, as he picked the fly-specks off from a lot of maple-sugar he was putting away for “new maplesugar” next spring. “I heard the whole church was mad at each other over a grab-bag, and the Presiding Elder had all he could do to quiet things down.” “That don’t amount to much,” replied the boy. “There’s always something turns up when the sociable season first starts in. You see, ma was appointed a committee to fix up a grabbag. Me and my chum were digging bait that morning to go fishing, when pa came out and said, ‘ Hennery, I believe you put up that chicken job on me, and I don’t believe anything but hard work will reform you. I want you to spade up the ground under the currant bushes.’ I asked him if he wanted a hump-baeked, disfigured boy, made so by hard work. Pa said he would risk the hump, and told ‘me to pitch in, and then went down town. My chum said he would help me, and me and him got the job done before 2 o’clock. When we got done I come in and found ma had finished the grabbag, and had it all loaded, with the top fastened with a puckering-string, and hung on the back of a chair. Ma was upstairs getting her Sunday clothes on, to go to the sociable, so it didn’t take me and my chum long to empty the bag and get first choice. Then I got our mouse trap and took it to the bain, and caught two nice big fat mice and put ’em in a collar-box with holes cut in it, to give ’em air, and dropped that in the bag. Then my chum remembered a big napping turtle he had in the swill-barrel, and me and him got that and wiped it as dry as we could, and tied it all up but its head, and put that in just as the deacon’s hired man came to take the | bag over to the socialbe. Me and my ; chum went down to his house and waited till the people got over to the sociable and then we went over and got up in a tree where we could see through the open window, and hear all that was going on. Pa he stood over by the bag and shouted, ‘Ten cents a grab; don’t let anybody be backward in a good cause.’ Three or four had put up their 10 cents and made a grab, when an old maid from Oshkosh, who had been to the springs for hysterics, got in her Work on the collar-box,, When she got the cover off, one of the mice that knew his business, jumped on her shoulder and crawled down her neck, and the other dropped down on the floor and started around to meet the other one. You’d a dide to seen her flop and show |»er stocking and scream. The deacon’s folks thought it was another attack of hysterics, and pa and the deacon got her on the sofa and held her while they poured paregoric and cayenne pepper down her. When she got loose she pcreamed all the harder. Then one of the other women see the mouse and got up in a chair and shook her skirts and asked the new young minister to help her catch tho mouse. The poor fellow looked as though Lewould like to, but he failed. Just

then the bottom of the chair broke and let her fall over on ma and tore her bangs all down. Ma called her a ‘hateful thing’ and told her she ought to be ashamed of herself. Finally they got things in order, but no one wanted to tackle the bag, and as here was , where the profits come in, pa braced up I and said he’d like to know why every- ‘ body acted so ’spicuous, he’d like to see a grab-bag that would give him the hysterics 1 , and said ‘aomen are always ; gettin’ scared at nothin’.’ He then put down 10 cents and jammed his hand way down in the bottom of the bag, but he didn’t keep it there long. He give a jump and yanked his hand out, yelling ‘thnnder!’ Then he swung it ovet hia head to shake it off, and brought it down on the deacon’s head and smashed his specks. Then he swung it the other way, and struck the woman President of the sewing society in the stomach and knocked her down in the deacon’s lap. After pa had hollered himself hoarse, and thumped half the people in the room, the turtle let go, and pa said he ‘could lick the man that put that steel trap in the grab-bag.’ Then pa and ma I got mad, and everybody began to jaw, and they all went home. There’s been a sort of coldness among the members ever since. I guess pa won’t have a hump-backed boy, but I’ll get even with him. you just see if I don’t. ” And the boy went out and took a sign, “Warranted Fresh,” from the fruit stand, and hung it on to a blind horse that was hitched to a garbage wagon in front of the store. — Peck's Sun.