Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1883 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Say, you think of about everything mean that is going, don’t you?” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in to show that his black eye had been cured. “The minister explained to me yesterday how you caused him and your father to lay and soak in the water for about three hours, one hot day last summer, in the lake, and they both blistered their backs. The minister says the skin has not stopped peeling off his shoulders yet. What paused you to play such a mean trick on them ?” “Oh, it was their own fault,” said the boy, as he looked with disdain on a watermelon that was out of season, and had no charm in October. “You see, the night the sociable was at our house, the minister and some of the deacons were up in my room, which they used that night for a smoking-room, and while they were smoking they were telling stories about what fun they had when they were boys, and I remember one story the minister told about finding some girls in swimming once, and stealing their clothes, and making them wait till night, and then a girl had to fix herself up with newspapers and go home and send a wagon after the rest of the girls. The minister thought it was awful cunning, so when the church had the picnic last summer on the bank of the lake I remembered about it. Beats all, don’t it, how a boy will remember anything like that ? Well, after dinner I saw pa whisper to the minister, and they took a couple of towels and a piece of soap and started off up the lake about half a mile, and I knew they were going in swimming. Well, it didn’t take me very long to catch on. I got an overdress that one of the girls had been wearing to wash dishes, and a shawl, and stole a hat belonging to the soprano of the choir, and a red parasol that a girl left under a tree, and I went down in the woods and put on the clothes, over my pants and things, and when pa and the minister had got in the water and were swimming around, I put up the parasol and tripped along the shore like a girl picking iiowers, and when I came to the stump where they had put their clothes I didn’t look toward the water, but acted tired, and sat down on the stump and began to fan myself. You’d a dide to see pa look. He crawled up on the beach, in the shallow water, and said, ‘Elder, do you see that?’ The elder looked, with hisself all under water except his head, and said, ‘ Merciful goodness! Squire, we are in for it. That interesting female is going to sit there and read a novel through before she goes away.’ I peeked through the fan and could hear all they said, while I pretended to re td a novel. They swam around, and made a noise, but I was deaf, and I thought it wasn’t any worse for me to sit on the stump than it was for the minister, when he was a good little boy, to steal the clothes of the girls. I stayed until I got tired, and didn’t hear them when they hollered to me to go away, and after awhile they got watersoaked, and had to do something, so the minister broke off a piece of a tree and dressed himself in it, and came toward me, and said: ‘Madam, excuse me for troubling you, but if you will go away while I get my clothes, I will take it as a favor.’ I pretended to be insulted, and got up and walked off very indignant, and went back to the picnic and returned the clothes, and pretty soon they came up, looking as red as if they had been drinking, and the picnic was ready to go home. Somebody told pa it was me, but I don’t know who it was who gave it away. Anyway, he chased me clear out out of the woods with a piece of sapling. That was the time I told you I was too tired to ride, and walked home from the picnic. Pa has forgiven me, but I don’t believe the minister ever will. - Don’t you think some of these pious folks are awful unforgivin’?” “Oh, people are not all so good as you and I are!” said the grocery man, as he watched the boy making a sneak on a bunch of grapes. “But did you go to the circus?” “Circus! Well, I should assimilate. And it is a wonder I am not there yet. But whatever you do, don’t ask pa if he was at the circus, ’cause he will kill you. You see pa and I drove up to the race-track, where the circus was, in the evening, and after the circus was out we waited to see the men take the tents down, and after they had gone •we started to drive home. It was darker than a squaw’s pocket, and I drove out on the race-track, and the old horse used to be a racer and he picked up his ears. Pa tooit the lines and said he would drive, ’cause we were out pretty late, and ma would be nervous. I told pa I- didn’t believe he was on the right road, but he said he guessed nobody could fool him about the road to town, and bless me if he didn’t drive around that track about eight times! Every time we passed the grand stand, which pa couldn’t see, on account of his eyes, I laughed; but I thought if he knew the road so confounded well I could ride as long as he could. After we had rode around the track about eight miles and I was getting sleepy, I mildly suggested that maybe we had better stop at a house and inquire the way to town, and pa got mad and asked me if I took him for a fool. Then he drove around a couple of times more, aud the man that keeps the track he came out with a lantern and said ‘hello!’ Pia stopped and asked him what he wanted, and he said, ‘Oh, nothin’,’ and pa drove on and told him to mind his business. We went around the track again, and when we got to the same place the man was there, and I guess pa thought it was time to inquire the way, so he pulled up and asked the man what he was doing there, and the man said he was minding his own business. Pa asked him if we were on the right road to town, and the man said if yre wasn’t in any hurry he would like to have us drive on the track all night, as it was a little heavy, and he wanted to get it in condition to speed the .colts the next day, but if we had to go we could drive out the gate and take the 'first left-hand road. Well, pa was mad, and he wanted to know why I didn’t tell him we were on the but I told him he seemed to know it all, and it was dangerous to advise a man who knew it all. He didn’t speak all the

way to town, but when we put out the horse he said: ‘Hennery, if this thing gets out your pa will have the reputation of being drunk. If you tell of it you are no friend of mine.’ So I shall not say anything about it, 'cause it ia a mean boy that will go back on his pa. ” And the boy went out whistling “She’s a Daisy.”— Peck's Sun *