Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

"Whew!” said the grocery man, as the bad boy came in and backed up against the stove, when a strong smell of norse filled the air and counteracted the smell of decayed eggs, “you haven’t gone to work in the livery stable again, have you ?” “No, but it is about the same. lam taking care of pa’s trotter, and it is more work than running a whole livery stable, ’cause yon have to rub a trotter about all the time, in one place or another, and blanket him, and bed him down, and treat him like a baby,” said the bad boy, as he took a leather trotting Loot out of his coat pocket, and sat down by the stove to punch a hole in the strap. “Well, by gum, that heats me,” said the groceryman, as he put on his spectacles and looked at the hoy, and held bis nose as the horse fumes came fresh from the stove. “Onlv two weeks ago your father failed, and now he keeps a trotter, and he is a member of the church, too, in good standing, and prays regu arlv. I swow, I have lost confidence in everybody.” “O, you don’t have to worry about pa,” said the hoy, as he buckled the trotting boot around his own ankle, and kicked his ankle’s together to see if it would hurt if he interfered. “Pa knows his business. Times were never so good in our family as they have been since pa failed, unless it was that time when pa was selling stock in the silver mine. Why, pa is full of fun at home, and ma, she latfs, and pa gets her anything she wants. He bought her a diamond lace pin last week with four big diamonds as big as hazel nuts. But ma isn’t going to wear it here at home, where people think pa is busted, but she is going to wait till they go off traveling and paralyze people at the hotels. But I s’poso pa has more fun with the trotter than you can shake a stick at. He paid a terrible price for the horse, ’cause he was learned to trot without pulling on the lines. Pa goes out on the road, and when anybody tries to pass him he lets the reins lay on the dashboard of the cutter loose,.and pa sort of shuts his eyes as though he was sweetly sleeping, and the horse just paws the snow. If anybody eomes along that belongs to our church, pa begins to sing a hymn like he was happy, and the trotter goes for all that is out. Some of ’em think pa’s mind is affected by his failure, and that his head is weak, but they don’t want to fool themselves much on pa. A man who can settle with his creditors for ten cents on the dollar, and stand them off for the ten cents, and put his money in bonds, don’t need mnch sympathy.” “Well, I guess your pa will pull through. But what is this I hear about you and your chum'hanging around the police court? I heard that you and him made np a purse to pay a fellow’s fine, and save him from going to the house of correction. You fellows will get to mixing in with thieves, and the first thing you know, you will get pulled by the police, and saltpeter won’t save you,” and the grocery man looked wise, as though he had saved two hoys from ruin by his sage remarks.

“Well, sir, if we hadn’t happened down to the Police court that morning, that boy would have been ruined. The Judge had just said, $5 fine, or ten days in the house of correction, and the policeman led the boy out, and as he passed me I thought his face was familiar, and as I knew the cop’s sister, he let me go to the station and see the boy. He used to live where we did before .we came here, and his folks were rich then, but his father failed and hiq mother died, and the boy never learned to do anything, and he has been, for a year, walking around from town to town, eating when anybody offered him a meal, and going without when they didn’t. ’Tother night he struck this town, and he was hungry and he didm’t have ambition enough to even go and beg a piece of bread, and he stood leaning against an iron fence, ready to freeze, when a policeman took him in. The ambition was all chilled out of him, and- he didn’t make any defense at the charge of vagrancy, and was going to be sent up with thieves and drunkards, when we happened to see him. I tell you, it don’t make any difference how rich a boy’s father is, every boy ought to learn to do some kind of work, because the time may come when he will have to work or starve. Well, he was tickled to see me, and cried some and said when he got out of jail he guessed he would go and drown himself, ’cause he wasn’t no good, and he talked about his mother’s dying, until it broke us all up, and then we paid his fine, and I took him up to our house and gave him some of my clothes, and we tried all the evening to think'of some work he could do, but he never learned to do a thing when his pa was rich except to walk down town and back. I never see a boy so helpless. I happened to think that when we were little boys we used to go in his ma’s kitchen on baking day, and they would give us some dough to mix, and I asked him if he remembered it, and he said he did. That was the only thing he could do. So I went down to the bakery and told the baker that I had a friend who didn’t know anything on earth but to mix dough, and I wanted to get a job for him. Well, sir, it happened that one of the bakers was off on a drunk, and the boss said to bring my friend in, and I told the boy, and impressed upon his mind that he must act as though he had been brought up on dough, and knew all about it, and I took him down there, and the baker gave him a job, and hfe caught on so well the baker is going to give him sl2 a week after next week. Oh, dear, but he could sling dough. Now this shows what a little thing will s&ve a boy, but it was a narrow escape, and every boy should learn something. Seems singular, don’t it, that the only thing that boy knew, by which he could earn a living, was something he learned when he was playing, in childhood, in his ma’s kitchen. Say, I wish I was an orator, and could go around giving lect’ires, like Ingersoll and Beecher. I would talk to boys and girls entirely, and I would show them that they were the biggest fools on earth, to neglect to learn a trade.” “Yes, that is all right, but what do you know, by which you could earn a

living ?” astteo me grocerv-man of tUe bad boy. thinking he had him. V “Me.” said the hoy, indignant at the idea that he didn't know anything, “I could do a dozen different things that I have learned. I could come into this grocery and double your business, by keeping, it clean, giving full weight, treating everybody kindly, keeping good groceries instead of poor ones, and wearing a clean shirt and a smile instead of a dirty shirt and a frown, as you do. I could ” “That will do, you can go,” and the grocery man let the hoy out and plosed the grocery to go to dinner, while the hoy went to the barn to feed his pa’s trotter.— Peck’s Sun.