Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“I am disgusted with you again,* said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he ma*ie his regular call one morning, with a scratch across his cheek and a strip of court plaster on his nose. “I heard you had got into a light with another j boy about one of these girls that graduated from the Industrial School, who was sent there for being incorrigible, and after yon had whipped the boy you walked home with the girl, in broad daylight, right before folks. Ain’t you ashamed to associate with such people? Bah, you are the most changeable boy I ever see; on© day you are a regular encyclopedia, and a Florence Nightingale and a philanthropist, aud the next day you are a John Sullivan, a regular tough. What would your Sunday school teacher have said if he had seen you lighting with that lioy, and going to her boarding place with that awful girl V” “O, that is all right. My Sunday school teacher ho heard about the row and he came down to our house and asked me about it, aud when I told him the particulars he said I ought to have knocked the neck all off the boy, aud that I did perfectly right, aud ho got the humane society to give me this letter of thanks,* and the boy pulled a letter out of bis pocket quite proudly and showed it to the grocery man. “The Sunday School teacher ain’t worrying about me half as much as you are. You see that little girl used to live near us, and she was such a sweet little thing that everybody loved her. Three years ago her mother died, and her pa was all broke up, and he drank a good deal, and then he got married again, and the woman he married was the meanest stepmother that ever was. O, you have no idea how mean she was to that little girl. She would maul the girl, and drive her outdoors, and the little one slept in alleys, and if her pa said anything about it his new wife would knock him silly. He didn’t have uo ‘sand’ at all, and didn’t dare stand up for liis own flesh and blood. The little girl got about one square meal in four days 1 guess, and she looked dirty, and her stepmother said she was a disgrace to the family, and she lied about the girl to her father, and one day when he was full they both went to a justice and swore that the girl was incorrigible, and she was sent to the girls’ reform school. Talk about justice, that was the greatest piece of injustice that ever was. The poor little thing found that the industrial school was a regular home, nearer to a home than anything slio had seen since her mother died, and she was happy, and a great favorite, and learned everything. ■ She was never bad at all, only in the way of the goldarned stepmother. No one but the stepmother ever said a word against her. The good ladies that manage the school got mashed on the little girl, and knew she Was a perfect little angel, and they got her a oliauce to knit silk socks and mittens for a fancy store, and got her a place to board, and made her father help pay her bo ml, but be had to do it unbeknown to his new wife, or she would have cut a gash in him with an ax. This boy that I had the fight with knew her as well as I did, when she lived at home, and knew she never did a wrong, but he protended to think that, because she had been an inmate of the industrial sohool, that she must be tuff, and he used to lay for her on the corner when she went out to walk for a rest, or when she went to carry her socks to tne store, and he would make fun of 4ier and call her names, and ask if he couldn’t go home with her, and he twitted her of being a reform school bird, and everything. She told me about it once, when mu and me met her on the street, and ma bent over her and hugged her and cried, ’cause her mother used to be ma’s chum when they attended a girls’ college years ago, afore the flood, pa says. Ma tofcl me I ought to see that boy and talk to him about it, and I asked ma what I would do if he wouldn’t stop bothering the girl, because he didn’t have any heart, and ma she was mad in a minute, and she said, ‘Hennery, do as you would if this little girl were your sister.’ Well, that settled his ha-h, and I told the little girl not to cry any more about it, and he wouldn’t bother her no more. So ’tother day I was coming along the street, and I saw that boy pioking on her, and she tried to get by him, and he got right in front of her, and just as I came up behind him he called her a name that no boy ought to ever call anybody’s sister. She looked by him, at me, and her face looked almost as pale and sorrowful as her dead mother’s face did the day of the funeral, when all us Sunday-sohool children saw her, before the coffin was closed, and the girl said, ’O, Hfennery, my friend, I do not deserve this, and it will kill me. ’ The boy looked around at me with a leer that reminded me of the villain in the play, and said, ‘Yon mind your own busines.’ I was so mad that -my knuckles cracked like when you twist yonr fingers out of joint, and I thought it was my business, ’canse ma set me up in the business herself, and before the girl could say anything, 1 began to mop the sidewalk with him, and break pickets off the fence with him, and I bumped his head on the enrb, and kicked liim in the watch pocket, and then he begged, bnt before I let him up he promised never to insult her or any other girl again, and he begged her pardon, and then I borrowed her handkerchief to wipe the blood off my nose,, and I walked home with her. That is all, only I went right home and told ma and pa, and they was glad, and the boy’s pa came over to onr house to complain of me, and pa was going to lick him, and the minister beard about it, and he came up to onr house and put bis hand ob my head and said he didn't believe in fighting, bnt there were times when nothing but a fight seemed to be appropriate for the occasion, and he put his arm around me and hugged me till he burst one of my ribs. And ever since that fight that poor little girl has gone about her work singing, and she goes to the store in safety, looking as iappy as a little queen, smiling and joyous, and Bhe says she knows her mother in heaven was looking down ind snw that fight, for she sees her in her dreams every night, and her mother’s face looks happier than it has auy time since she moved to heaven. Say,

do you believe people up in heaven have apy-glassea strong enough to look down here, through the clouds, and see a couple of boys scrapping on the sidewalk? Darned if I do.” “O, I don’t know," said the gTooery man, as he wiped a tear from his whiskers on his shirt-sleeve, “but I know one thing. lam the meanest fool in this town, to keep finding fault with you. You come out right every time, and I swow, if you hadn’t licked that boy I would have licked you," and the bad boy said something about these post mortem fighters, but are always talking about lighting the next woek, but who never get there at the right time, and he went out, whistling as usual, happy as a bad boy could be.— Peck’s Sun.