Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Well, Hennery, I am sorry to find yon in this fix,” said the grocery man as he tiptoed into the darkened room at the house of the bad boy, where he found him in bed, propped up with pillows, a pallor on his face that was frightful, and a general look of goneness. “Your pa tells me you have been sick nearly a week. I thought things at the grocery were going along in a solemn sort of a manner. Don’t hurt you to talk to you, does it?” and the grocery man looked for a chair to sit down in. “Naw, it don’t hurt,” said the bad boy, as he motioned to a chair, and the grocery man sat down. “If talking would kill me I would have __ been dead long ago. By the way, I * wish you would hand me that mustard plaster. You will find it in the chair you are setting on,” and the boy smiled a sickly smile, while the grocery man got up as though he was in a hurjy, and apologized for sitting on the plaster. “No apology necessary,” said the bad boy. “When anybody comes to see me they are welcome to the best we have got. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and a mustard plaster oovereth a multitude of pneumonia,” and Hennery applied the plaster to his chest, and asked the grocery man to hand him a box of pills on the table. The grocery man handed the boy a box of pills and a glass of Water, and he took a small handful of pills and a swallow of water, smacked his lips and said: “Ah! A nectar fit for the gods. Do you know there is something about being sick that takes the cake? You can lay and sleep, or raise up and cough. And then, the beautiful medicine the doctor leaves! I take it because it pleases the doctor. He is a nice man, but I don’t think a man can feel of your pulse and listen to the mocking bird in your heart by holding his ear on your shirt, and tell what is the matter with you. Gimme a drink. Now I want you to do some things for me, as I may not pull through, and pa is ' so busy in politics that he can’t attend to anything. Are you there, Moriarity?” “Yes, yes,” said the grocery man, as he saw the boy had something he wanted to say; “out with it, now,.and I will do anything you ask me to. ” “Well, you know that man without any legs, that plays the band-organ down on the corner. I want you to take my skates to him andtell him—” “Great heavens,” said the grocery man, “what do you want to send a pair of skates to a man that hasn’t got any iegs, for?” “Don’t interrupt the speaker,” said the bad boy, as he took a pill for a change. “Take the skates to him, and tell him I lend them to him till I get well. He has got three boys, and they are too poor to buy skates, and they can take turns using mine, and I shall not miss them, for if I live the skating will be all gone before I get outdoors, and if I die, there will be no skating where I am going. ” “0, say, hush up now,” said the grocery man. “You are not half as eick as you think you are, and there is no hurry about your dividing up your" worldly goods. In a day or * two you will be out as good as new, making it interesting for all of us. What was the hired girl laughing at when she let me in? She said something about your scaring the folks out of seven year’s growth, just before you wore taken sick,” and the grocery man thought if he could get the siclv boy talking about something funny it would cure him. “Well,” said the boy, as he laughed so the skin was drawn across his pinched face, “It was awful mean, but ma Wanted to know what time pa got home nights since he has got to working the ward for Alderman. You see, he comes in all times of the night, and tries to keej) still so as not to wake ma up. He comes in and undresses in the dark, and retires, and ma don’t wake up. I have got a friend working in a jewelry store, and I got him to lend me six of these little alarm clocks, and I wound them all up and placed them around the house where I could touch them off when pa came in. I put one on the liat-rack, and when pa came in just after midnight I touched it off ■ as he put his hat cn the hat-rack, and I crept Jialf way up-stairs in the dim light. Pa was trying to be quiet, and when that alarm went off he looked sick. He didn’t know what it was, but he just stood still, with "hiH overcoat half off, and waited for the thing to run down, and he was listening all the time to see if ma woke up. I had told ma to pretend to be asleep until the last one went off', which I had placed on the foot of the bed, and then for her to get up and begin to throw chairs. Pa started up stairs as soon as the clock stopped, in his stocking feet, and just as he got half way up stairs I touched off the second alarm, and pa stopped and I went up to the head of the stairs to get another one ready. Pa got hold of the clock and tried to stop its noise by holding it under his coat, and he listened for ma some more, but ma didn’t show up. When the clock got through sputtering pa came on up stairs, and at the top the jthird one went off, and then he was mad. He thought that would wake ma sure, but she snored right along through it all, and pa breathed hard and said some political words. When the clock stopped I slipped into the bedroom and whispered to ma that I was going, to let all three of the others off at once, and she said all right, so I waited till pa got part of his clothes off, when I turned on all three of them, and I slipped out in the hall, and then I began to hear chairs tumble around, and pa began to beg. I guess he thought there was a caucus. When the chairs had all been thrown I turned up the gas in the hall and came in just as though I had been frightened out of bed, and there stood ma laughing just as hard as she could and pa had crawled under the bed with only his feet sticking out, and I think he was saying his ‘now I lay me down to sleep,’ Ma coaxed him out, and maybe she did not read the riot act to him. She made him promise to keep away from politics and try to be a man and I guess he will. .But I had to pay for one of, the clooks, ’cause pa fell on it and busted the works flatter than a tin plate. But we had fun, and I guess

my staying up in the hall waiting for pa gave me the cold that made me sick, but I feel better now,-and I will be out to-morrow. Don’t you know, that when a sick person lays and thinks of dying it makes them worse, when if they get to talking about something interesting it braces them up ? Gome in again, boss, and when I get well I will come over to the /grocery and talk to you till you are sick,” and the bad boy rolled over to go to sleep, while the grocery man went out believing that nothing less than a cannon ball would kill the bad boy.— Peck's Sun.