Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1883 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Hello, hello, hello!” yelled the grocery man to the bad boy, aa he peeked through the window from the iutside to see if any customers were in, ‘Come in and let me look at those bruises you are carrying. Great heavens! how did you get that italic style on your nose, and did the same blow blacken both eyes?” and the grocery man laughed at the broke-up condition of the boy. “Oh, you laugh if you want to, but when you get walked all over by an infidel, and have some teeth knocked down your throat, you won’t laugh so much,” and the boy pouted as much as he could with his mouth swelled, and looked at the grocer as though he would like to tip the stove over. “What about an infidel ? You haven’t been fighting with a heathen, have you? Tell me all about it, because you are on your last legs, and confession is good for the souL Reveal to me the cause of that leaning tower of Pisa nose and that hie jacet colored eye,” and the grocery man winked at a carpenter who came in to fill his tobaccobox. “Well, you see one of the boys belonging to our gang of widow-helpers, his pa is an infidel, and he don’t believe anything, but he can saw more wood for widows than any of the boys. He is a good fellow, only he does not go to Sunday-school, and don’t believe there is any God or devil or anything. He has made us boys tired more than six times, when we have been sawing wood, talking about things that we believed in that he didn’t. He said the idea that a whale swallowed Jonah was all bosh, and Elijah going up in a chariot of fire was poppycolic, and everything was wrong, i went to a Deacon of our church, a regular old hard-shell, and told him about the boy, and asked him what ought to be done about it, and he was mad at the infidel boy, and said he ought to be scourged, and we should smite him and beat him with many stripes. I asked the Deacon if it would be right for us good boys to pile on to the infidel boy, and make him believe things if we had to choke them down him, and he said it would be doing a service to humanity, and would win for us everlasting fame and glory. Well, here’s your fame. Gaze on my lefthanded nose and you can see the fame. I tell you I don’t take no more jobs converting infidels. I want to do everything that is right, but hereafter, if .an infidel meets me on the sidewalk, I shall go across the street and let him have the whole street. You see, we got the infidel boy up in the hay mow of the barn, and, while the boys were talking to him I slipped a clothes line around his legs and tied them, and then tied his arms, and we had him so tight he couldn’t wiggle. He tried to get away, but he couldn’t, and then I commenced on him about Adam and Eve eating the apples. At first he wouldn’t believe anything, but I choked him until he admitted that the devil got them into a scrape. Then I asked him if he believed that the Lord cut a spare rib out of Adam and took a lot of dust and puttied it up and made Eve, and set her up in the sun to dry. The darned inf*lel kicked on that and said he never would believe it, but I sat down on his stomach and tickled his nose with a straw, and finally he caved, and said he believed it, but he was mad, and tried to chew the clothes line around his arms to get away, but we held him tight. Then I tackled him on the children of Israel walking through the sea without getting their feet wet or catching cold, and said that was a blasted lie. I gave him two minutes to believe that, and when the time had expired he said he couldn’t swallow it, so I took hold of his ears and tried to pin them together at the back of his head, and finally he weakened and said the story did begin to look reasonable, and he believed it. We were getting along splendidly, and I thought what a triumph it would be to bring that boy into Sunday-school a firm believer, a brand plucked from the burning. We took a recess, and played mumblety peg, all except the infidel, for ten minutes, and then I tackled him on Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, and ha said that was all nonsense, that it couldn’t be done, and t began to run timothy hay and tickle grass up his trousers’ legs, and finally he weakened and admitted that Josh was all right on the sun scheme. He kicked on Solomon liaAing a thousand wives and said he never would believe a man could be such a blasted fool, but I took a hay rake and parted his hair in the middle, and filled the inside of his undershirt with oats, and when they began to hurt him he said the Solomon story was true, and he even went so far as to believe Solomon had 1,200 wives, so I got him to believe 200 more than there was, which is pretty well for an infidel. He wouldn’t take any stock in Jonah and the whale, until we buried him up in the hay and made him believe we were going to set the hay on fire, when he said he believed that whales were used in those days to carry passengers, and were fitted up* with state rooms on the inside. Then I tackled him on the Hebrew children being cast into the fiery furnace and not being scorched at all, but he said he Vould believe anything but that, so I put on my roller skates and began to walk on him, and skate, and fall down on him, and he begged, and said, come to think of it, that fiery furnace story looked the most reasonable of the whole lot. Then I thought he was getting to be converted enough for one day, and I untied the rope and let him loose. You wouldn’t believe a boy could be so base, but as soon as he was loose all the good work 1 had done on him seemed to be lost, and he became an infidel again in less than a minute, and scared the other boys down stairs with a pitchfork, and cornered me, and knocked me down, and walked on me, and pounded me, and before he got through with me he made me swear that I didn’t believe anything in the Bible. He was just as mean as he could be, and I don’t dare be good unless I go off somewhere alone. I showed my nose to the Deacon, and told him the infidel mauled me, and the Deacon said I was no good. Say, what would you do if you was in my place?” “I would go and soak my head,” said

the grocery man. “You have got te learn one thing, and that is, mind your own business about your religious views. The infidel boy is as much entitled to his belief as you are, and the days of choking your views down people who do not believe as you do are passed. After you get mauled a few times more you will be pretty smart. You attend to doing good, wherever you see a chance, but don’t try to stem the tide of infidelity by bruts force, and you will be happier.” “All right, that lets me out,’" said the boy, as he looked in a mirror to see how black his eyes were, and tried to push his nose back square in front. “Hereafter people can believe as they please, but I will get even with that Deacon or my name is not Hennery. I bet you he knew that infidel boy was too much for me. Don’t it seem strange to you that an infidel boy should be endowed with muscle enough to knock a Christian boy silly. I can’t account for it. I should think the good boy ought to have the most muscle, ” and the boy went off thinking how to get even with the Deacon. — Peck's Sun.