Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 February 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Say, what you got in your mouth, a base-ball ?” asked the grocery man of the bad boy, as he came into the store with both cheeks sticking out, and looking red. “I’ll bet yon have got your mouth full of benzine, or some thing, and you are going to play some joke on me, by squirting it on the stove.” “No, I ain’t got nothing in my mouth,’ said the boy, in a voice that sounded as though he was trying to talk with a hot potato in his mouth. “This is my Sun-day-school lesson. I was smote on one cheek and I turned the other, and nearly had my neck broke. Not any more turning the other cheek for Hennery.” “G, go ’way,” said the grocery man. “You wasn’t Buch a blamed fool as to turn the other cheek when you got hit, was you?” And then, examining the boy’s cheeks and finding them Bwelled up, he added: “By jingo, I believe yon did. How was it, any way ?” “Well, it was in the Sunday-school lesson,” said the boy, “and my teacher said it was the greatest triumph in the world for a person to be able to turn the other cheek when smote on one cheek. I asked him if people ever did that, and he said our best citizens did. It required a great deal of patience, but a person shopld always turn the other cheek also. I asked pa about it, and pa said the teacher was right, and that it was the duty of every citizen to turn the other cheek when smote on one cheek, and he should always do so. Well, sir, I want to be good, and I just longed for some one to smite me on one cheek so I could turn the other also, but it seemed as though the smiters were not on the war path, and for two days I had to go around without being smote. But Wednesday afternoon I was down by the theater, where they were having a matinee, and there was a lot of boys sliding on a smooth piece of ice in the gutter, and I rushed on to slide, and I run against a boy, and he hauled off and lammed me on this cheek. Oh, gosh! but I did see stars. Um! But didn’t he smite. I was going to pick up a froze cat that was in the street and hit him, when I happened to think of turning the other cheek, and I turned my face toward him, and he gave me another, right here. Oh, oh! But it was ten times bigger than the other smote, and I guess it made me crazy. Any way, I shall plead insanity, to get out of it. ” “Get out of what?” asked the grocery man. “You don’t have to get out of anything. If he hit you a couple of times, and you stood it, you don’t have to get out of anything.” “Yes, but I didn’t stand it,” said the boy, as he felt of h£s swelled cheek. “When he hit me that last rap, it knocked all the meekness and pious out of me, and I went at him and we had a nawful fight. He wouldn’t turn his other cheek, cause I guess he was a heathen, that never went to Sunday school, so I turned his other cheek for him, and I warmed him so he hollered enough. But I was sorry afterwards, and felt as though I would be ashamed to meet pa or my teacher. So I thought I would see how those good men would stand being smote, and I found a feller who wanted to earn two shillings, and I hired him to smote pa and the teacher, just to see how they would turn the other cheek. The teacher keeps books in a store, and goes to lunch in a restaurant, and when he came along the fellow 1 had hired went up to him and slapped him on the cheek not very hard, but just hard enough to make him feel as though he was hit. I looked for the teacher to turn the other cheek, but, gosh, -he turned pale and run down the alley back of the store, and his coat-tails stuck out so you could play marbles on them. Iyelledtohim to turn the other cheek, but he run faster, and the next morning the paper told about a dastardly attempt at highway robbery and assassination on the street,’ in broad daylight, one of ouar most respected citizens being the victim, and only for his presence of mind the attempt would have been successful. Well, I thought I should die when I read that.. Then I had my hired man try it on pa.. I knew pa would turn his other cheek, because lie said that was the right thing;to do. But when the fellow hit pa, pa turned and lammed the fellow right in the ear, and then yelled for a policeman, but my hired man got out of the way. That night pa said he had a narrow escape from being sand-bagged, and I asked him if he turned the other cheek also, and he said not if he knowed it. I don’t t.binlr this is the right kind of a climate for turning the other- cheek when you are smote* do you'?” “Well,” said the grocery manv as he looked! at the boyh swelled cheeks, “it is hard to make a rule that will apply in all kinds of cases. The idea is a good one, to turn the other cheek, but we are apt to forget, especially if on a casual inspection of the smiterwe think we can whip him, or if he is so small that his smiting does not hurt. But when a man deliberately belts me in the- eye, and dislocates it, I immediately think that one jaw is enough to have fractured at, once. I guess when that smiting business became the custom, and people turned the oilier cheek, they didn’t strike from the- shoulder the way they do now days. I think the i best way is to put up your arm and ward off the blow, and try to reason with the siniter, and if he insists on smiting, sort of accidentally cuff hi™ in the nos®. That brings a smiter to his senses about as quick as anything. And so your pa didn’t practice what he preached, eh?” “Not much. He got hot in a minute, and acted like a prize-fighter. I asked hind about it this monriug, and he said it was all right enough for boys to turn the other cheek, where they had plenty, but when a man got his growth, it was dangerous for anybody to try to smite him. Queer, ain’t it?” and the boy went out as though he was trying to think of something real hard.— Peck’s Sun. It is impossible that an ill-natured man can have a public spirit; for how should he love 10,000 men who never loved one?— Pope. New Zealand has two universities, both of which confer degrees.