Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1883 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

•Well, how did you pull through Thanksgiving day?” asked the grocery man of the bad boy, as he came into tbe store looking as happy as though there was good skating the year round. “Have any fun ?” “Fun is no name for it,” said the boy, as he took a knife and scratched some beeswax off the bottom of his boots. “I thought I had seen fun before, but that Thanksgiving day made me tired of laughing. You see, we all went to Deacon Perkins’ house to dinner. There is two kinds of people in our church. One kind believes that you must never have any fun, and always wear a long face, and sigh, and crj easy, while the other faction believes in doing up religious chores and having a furlough. They believe that there is a time for praying, a time for dancing, and a time for all kinds of innocent fun. Deacon Perkins is the leader of the funny side, and he is the iolliest old dog you ever saw, except when he is serious, and then everybody lets up on any foolishness, and pays attention. The minister believes in Deacon Perkins’ ideas, but he don’t dare to take sides, thdugh he winks at the fun, and enjoys it. The Deacon had our folks and about a dozen other families to dinner on Thanksgivings and we had a boss dinner. The Deacon and the ministei* were just too happy, except when the Deacon asked the blessing, and talked about the poor people all around, that had no turkey stuffed with oysters, and then they were sad. But after they got to passing plates for more turkey and things, there was fun all around the board. But the most fun was after dinner; When it began to get dark the Deacon came to me and said they were going to have a dance in the big room up stairs. They had taken up the carpet, and he said the floor was not just right, and he wished I would get a cake of beeswax and wax the floor the way they have it waxed down at tbe dancing school, and so me and my chum went up stairs and waxed the floor. I guess maybe we put on too much wax, for the first half hour it stuck to people’s shoes, butafter that it begun to get smooth, and by the time they got warmed up, the floor was just like glary ice. The crowd was all up stairs except the minister and hvo old maids that couldn’t dance. They was taking politics and things, but after awhUe the minister said’he didn’t mind going up to the dancing room to look on, so he took the two rimmen on his arms and went up. Ho came in the door just as a dance was over, and he started to walk across the floor to set the wimmen down beside the fiddler, when his left foot slipped sideways and kicked the feet out from under one of the wimmen and she started to fall, and the other one pulled the other way, and both the minister’s feet slipped and tbe whole three eff them went down, and I snorted right out. Ma looked at me kind of sassy, and I shut up, but pa was walking across the floor with a big woman to form on for a quadrille, and he said, ‘the wicked stand in slippery places,’ and just then one of the women, who was trying to get up hit pa in the heel with her shoe, and his feet began to slide, and he grabbed the woman he was walking with, and they went down so the gas fixtures rattled. Pa struck on his hip, and one foot hit the minister near the watch pocket and he grunted, and pa was so heavy he kept going, and he plowed right through the two women that went down with the minister, and they called pa an old brute, and then Deacon Perkins and ma started to the rescue, and ma slipped and pulled the Deacon down, and I went to help ma and I met the fiddler and we both fell, aud then everybody else laughed, and when the fiddler got up he found I had set down on the fiddle and it was all broke up. I have never seen pa cut as many flipflaps as he did trying to keep from falling, and the minister was so annoyed at the spectacle he presented that I dare not go to church for a week or two for fear I shall think about it when he is preaching, and snort right out in meeting. We finally got them all on their feet and the dance was broke up, but they didn’t blame me and my chum, ’cause the Deacon told us to wax the floor. Some of the sober Deacons in the church heard aliout it and they say it was a judgment on the jolly folks for dancing. Do you think it was a judgment on us ?” “Judgmentnothing,” said the groceryman. “It wassjmply too much beeswax. Lots of things in this wotld that .are laid to Providence is the result of too much beeswax. A man gets to living high and drinking hard and some day he is found dead, and the people say it is a dispensation of Providence. It is simply a case of too much beeswax. A man gets to doing an immense business on a small capital and he flies high, and people get to thinking if he didn’t make the earth he had a controlling interest in the contract. He walks proud and looks over his old friends and' seems to be seeking new wprldi to conquer ,and all of a sudden you hear something drop, and the Sheriff has the key to the store, and the high-flyer finds that he is flat on the ground. It is too much beeswax. The beeswax was there all the time, but had not got ready to be Slippery Until the highflyer got too warm. It is just so in every ” “Oh, say,” says the boy, as he see the grocery man was wound up for all day, “you make mo weary. Did I. tell you I was going into the show business ?” “No, you don’t tell me,” said the groceryman. “What is it? A circus?" “No, not any circus. I have been looking the thing over, and I think there is more money in being a living skeleton than anything there is going, and I have got an offer from a museum of S2OO a week as soon as I can get lean enough, and I have quit eating since Thanksgiving. I have lost two pounds, and at that rate I will be ready to exhibit about Christmas. A living skeleton can lay up all his money, ’cause he don’t have to eat, and his clothes don’t cost much, and it is a regular picnic. They wanted me to be a man without legs, but I thought that would be bad if I should ever want to quit the show business, and then they wanted me to be a jorilla, but a jorilla

is only a uanimal. and can’t go in society. They offered to get = wax Lead for me if I would be a two-headed zulu, but I don’t want to be a deception. 1 had rather be a freak of nature. Pa is encouraged since I have decided to be a living skeleton, and says I will ’mount to something yet. He thinks I better go and board at a cheap boardinghouse, in order to become a skeleton by the time I have promised to show, but I guess I can find all the facilities I want at home, r Say let’s go in partnership, and you be a jorilla or a wild pirate. Your head is flat enough on top, and your eyes look like gimlet holes in a boot heel ” The boy got out of the'store just ahead of a hatchet, and he went into a candytstore and bought soine chocolate caramels to become a skeleton on.— Peck’s Sun.