Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Say, I don’t want you around heie no more,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with his breeches tucked in his boots, and wanted to borrow a fish-pole. “I have noticed you lately going around a good deal with that ‘sheeny’ boy. Those Jews are no good, and if you go with that boy you wdl be ruined. Now keep away irom here tmtil you let that boy alone,” and the grocery man looked mad, though he was polite enough when a Jewish lady, who Lves in the same block, came in and bought some groceries. “Well, what’s the matter with that boy?” asked the bad boy, the blood coming to his face indignantly. “Has he done anything that wasn’t right ? I have never seen a boy that was any straighter than he is. ” “That don’t make any odds.- Jews are all alike. That boy will cheat you out of your eye teeth. He will pinch a penny until tne goddess of liberty will grant. You ask your pa what he thinks about your going with Jew boys,” and the grocery man looked as though, if his advice was taken, the bad boy would be saved. . “O, go way,” said the bad boy. “Pa says he had just as soon borrow money of a Jew as anybody. Say, that ‘sheeny’ boy, as you call him, has done me more good than any boy I ever played with. He has taught me more about the proper way to treat my parents than anybody. You ought to see him at home. He never plays any jokes on his parents, and is just as tender to his ma as though she was his best girl. His ma isn’t very healthy, and he is always on the lookout for something he} may do to save her a step, or make her enjoy herself. His pa is a close trader in business, but at home the family has a regular picnic all the time. There is never anything but smiles in their house, and the poor who come there to beg always go away with baskets full, and if the baskets are too heavy, this ‘sheeny* boy that you abuse gogs and helps carry the baskets home for them. He will work all day to put up a swing for poor neighbor’s children and furnish the rope. I have seen him unscrew the top of his little savings bank and take all the money out to give away to those who are destitute. And hit father and mother encourage him in doing good. Why, he is the tenderesthearted boy I ever saw, and I am going to stand by him. I don’t care a darn whether his nose is put on sideways or endways, whether he says, ‘has du kosch,’ or ‘tra-la-la,’ as long as his heart is as big as a peck measure, and as tender as new asparagus, he is a friend of mine, and don’t you forget it. ” “Well,” said the grocery man, a little taken back, “this one may be all right, but you ought to know that the Jewa crucified Christ, and you ought to have some pride about you, and go back on them like the rest of us. It is fashionable to abuse Jews.”

“O, give us a rest,” said the boy, mad enough to kick somebody. Suppose a few of them did lynch a man eighteen hundred years ago, they didn’t know what they were about. Didn’t Christ say so, and didn’t He forgive them ? If the one crucified could forgive them, what are you monkeying about at this late day ? You poor old fraud haven’t got any right to make that old affair a personal matter, and put on any style over the people better than you are. I have never heard of a Jew being in jail or in a poor house. They don’t steal. They don’t put sand in their sugar. I never knew a Jew to refuse to contribute to any charitable object, or to turn a deserving applicant for assistance away from his door. Some of them may he as mean as some of us United States fellows, but they have got to be awful mean if they are. Was the crucifixion of Christ the only crime that was ever committed in this world that should be remembered, and the people prejudiced against the perpetrators? Your ancestors in New England burned people at the stake on account of their religious convictions. Suppose every New Englander who wears spectacles and eats beans should be looked upon as you look upon the Jews, because their forefathers roasted Christians on the half shell, -what kind of a society would we have, any way ? Their religion is none of your business or mine, but you could learn a good deal that would her efit you if you could attend then- synagogue for a few months and listen to the teachings of a good rabbi. The only thing I have against them is that they won’t let their young people marry amongst our folks, but they will get over that some day. If the Jews should get to marrying Gentiles there would he a stop put to some of the extravagance of the Gentiles, and it would be millions of dollars in the pockets of the people.” “Well, they won’t eat pork,” said the grocer, as a last argument against the Jews. “Any people that will go back on one of the greatest products of this country are to blame. If the- Jews would eat pork it would go up two cents a pound in a week.” “Oh you darn old fool,” said the bad boy, perfectly disgusted. “That is a pretty argument. Whisky is as great a product of the country as pork, and you don t drink whisky, so you go back on a great national product the same as they do. They don’t need pork in their business, and you don’t need whisky in yours, and neither of you have to use it. No, sir. Until you can show me some reason for going back on my ‘sheeny’ friend, besides the fact that his ancestors did a wrong eighteen hundred years ago, and the fact that he is not mashed on pork spare ribs, he can consider Hennery his friend, and I will follow the examples of kindness and charity which he always displays, and in time I may see that there is a good deal of fun in the world without playing tricks on the people. Now give me that’ fish-pole,” and the boy went out, leaving the grocer thinking what a fool be had made of himself.— Peck's Sun. A Connecticut girl writes to a Hartford p.xper th say that she caught a mouse with her hands and strangled it. Dr. Dio Lewis says that American women need more sunshine.