Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Bay, come in here now and give me some information," caid the grocery man to the bad boy, as he stood on the steps behind a barrel of axhelves, waitfor a boy to throw a wet snow-ball at him, when he intended to push the barrel over on the boy; “you ought ■to know everything, because your pa takes the papers and your ma belongs to the sewing society. I don’t read any pauers and depend entirely on what customers tell me when they come in to trade. What is this I hear about Bismarck and the Lasker resolutions, and Congress, and all that ? ” and the grocery man lit a clay pipe and sat down on a basket of turnips. , “Bismark and Lasker* said the boy, as he rolled an orange on a barrel he’ad to make it soft; “don’t you know anything about that? Well, you ought to keep posted. There are lots of times when hired girls come here to trade that you could make yourself solid with them by informing them the topics of the day. You see, Bismarck was one of the star-route robbers. It was their habit to wear big tin stars, and go out on the plains to rob the mail carriers. Lasker was a good man who used to carry the mails between Laramie and Helena, Montana. Lasker knew the robbers were going to rob the mails one day, so he filled a mail sack with dynamite, and when Bismarck ordered him to throw up his hands, he just threw the mail sack to Bismarck, and the dynamite exploded, and blew him and his band all over the Territory. .“You don’t say so," said the grocery man; "I ought to read more. I got an idea from just glancing at the headings in the papers, that Bismarck started a town somewhere out in Dakota and Lasker tried to jump his claim. lam much obliged to you for the information, and if anybody comes in here and, fires Bismarck and Lasker conundrums at me after this I won’t have to pretend to be deaf and change the sUbjectWhat is this tariff business IJiear customers talking about every little while ? Is this tariff running for any office ?” “No, tariff has not been for anything yet, but expects to be,” and the boy looked out of the eorner of his eye at the grocer to see if he was as big a fool as he pretqjjded. “Tariff is a Republican when he is in Republican, localities, and a Democrat when he is in a Democratic locality, and where the thing is about even he straddles the fence and hangs one leg on each side. Tariff wants to be President, but don’lj knew which party to take the nomination from. Ra is for tariff, in some sa-i loons where he is working up bial chances for Alderman, and in some sa-, loons he is opposed to tariff. It is queer how it works, but a boy musn’t auk too many questions or he gets fired outdoors.” a “I am glad that I know about this tariff,” said the grocer, scratching a match to relight his hipe. “That thing has bothered me more than any one thing. Somehow I got an idea it was a sort of barnacle that attaches itself to goods that are shipped from foreign countries, from what I heard people say. One day I found a peculiar formation on the bottom of a basket of imported dates, and I says to myself, ‘that must be a tariff,’ but it was only some mud. But, say, what does the doctor say about your pa? Will he pull through?”

“Pa is better, thanks to careful nursing. You see pa began finding fault with me again because 1 didn’t play more jokes on him. I told him that people were getting an idea that I was mean as pusley because I played jokes on him, and I had quit. Pa said, ‘ Never mind what people say. lam your father, and it pleases me to have vou practice on me. I think if more men allowed the natural of youth to have ita fun at home, there would be less deviltry done away from home. Now, if*you don’t make your pa walk turkey in less than twenty-four hours, I’ll take you across my knee, you hear. The fun I have at home is what braces me np for a political campaign.’ Well, when pa said that I felt that it was an undutiful son that would £0 back on his parent and deprive him of the excitement his nature demanded, $0 I went to work to think of something to make pa remember old times. That C suing at the supper table, we got to king of spinal meningitis, and pa said pome of our best citizens were having it. He said it was an aristocratic disease, and it was a compliment to a man’s standing in society to have it. I psked him what the first symptoms were, and he said he understood it was ■ p cold feeling along the spine. The j text morning I took about two quarto of ponnded ice, and filled the two* pistol pockets of pa’s pants with it, and the i tail pockets of his coat, and he pnt on : |iis things and come down to breakfast.. i He said the dining-room was cold, and , he rubbed his hands’, land occasio ially j looked sort of scared, but he sat down , to breakfast. He had not sat there ; more than a minute before he told ma i he didn’t want any breakfast, and he went and lay down on the lounge.. I told ma whatl had done, and she l&ffed, and pretty soon pa began to call for ma. She went to him and told himhe-looked sick. Pa said he was. He said he had .got the aristocratic disease, and didn’t care who knew it. He kept getting cold, and finally concluded to> send for a doctor, and I went after him, hut I didn’t hurry back. Ma, she had a quiet talk with pa on his condition, and made him believe he was overworked, and made him promise to let politics alone, and try to lead a different life. Pa got better before long, and sat up, . and when he found his coat and pants all damp from the pounded ice, he said he guessed he had sweat the disease entirely out of his system, and he changed his clothes and eat alate breakfast, but I guess he found some ice in his pockete, for when I came in, he said, ‘You’r 3 nice boy, ain’t you, to try and play freeze-out on your poor old» pa! Don’t let it occur again.’ Qtfeer, ain’t it, that ft man will yearn to have jokes played on him, and order them as'you would groceries, and when they’come he has to get huffy. Well, I must go apearng suckers,” and the boy went off, leaving the grocery man badly mixed ip on Bismarck arid the tariff.— Peck's •Sun.