Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

f ‘‘Ah, good-morning," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he was going by without looking toward the store. “Co*e in. and Jet’s u» talk ever the state of the country.” “ Well, what part of the country shall we begin on?" asked the boy„ as he came in and basked a few strawberries from the bex, and complained beoause the grocery man did not put cream and sugar on them. “Shall we touch on finances, polities, religion, or agriculture?” “Finances,” said the grocery man, as he laid down a paper in which he had been reading ol the Grant failure, took off his spectacles, wiped them on a pieoe of maniln paper, and put them in a tin case. “What do you thinko! the trick Grant’s sons played on the old man ? That’s about as bad as any of the tricks yeu have played on your pa, Hennery. Lshould not be surprised to see the New York papers aoouse you of being responsible for the downfall of the Grant boys, as they accuse you of ruining all the l>oys that gc wron'g.” “O, the Graatboys are- like lots of other boys all over the country, and Grant is like many fathers, of less business sagacity. Grant is a good man to sit around and draw a pension, and wait for another war. He is entitled to live like a king, and have all. his expenses paid by the Government he perpetuated by his military genius* but lie is not equal to running a peanut-stand. There should*be a law to.prohibit him. from trying to go into business, and no one should be allowed! to >kanoodle him into the use «f his name to catch suckers. Grant made the mistake that nearly all fathers make,, in thinking his sons are smarter than other boys. Because Grant was a- snoeessfnl soldier,, it was no evidence that his boys were above the average. They were ordinary boys* had an ordinary education, and would have stood oa good a chance as most boys in running a grocery, reporting oti a daily paper, or braking on a freight train, and in any of these positions they might, have failed, and they might have been successful, and conue. to the front. But because their father was a good soldier, the boys thought they could run a business that would paralyze the ablest financier in this, country, and the poor eld father was induced to believe his boys were made oi better material than other boys, and. he lent bis name to their wildcat, foolish enterprises, and they at once owned the earth. Some one else owned the earth under them! but they owned it cn top, and they got the big head, and competed with millionaires who had more money than they could possibly spend, and for a year or two y m have read more about the style the Grants were putting on than you have of the Asters and Vanderbilts. Now that it is over, anybody can see what fools they were, and what a weak old father Grant was, and they will drop down to their level; and if they ever amount to anything again, it will bo from what they earn, unless they are weak enough to help spend the money that a grateful poople con tributed to their father, and I should think they w/wuldbe about equal to that emergency. It is a clear case of big head on the part of the whole family, and nobody is sorry for any of them except the pa and ma. And great men, from the President down, have many heartaches, and pass, many sleepless nights, thinkiag of sons who are doing their best to being the gray hairs of their parents in sorrow to the grave. I tell you parents that only have a few jokes played on them are in luck. If Grant’s boys had initiated their pa into a Masonry, and given the goat degree, as me and my chum did my pa, Grant would have picked himself up and felt a good deal better than he does to be initiated into the ‘One Tousand and One,’ where the first degree is ‘petit larceny,’ the second degree obtaining money om false pretenses, and the third degree highway robbery.” “Well, that is about the way I look at it,” said the grocery man, as he spilled a little cayenne pepper on a big strawberry on top of a box. “But I noticed your pa out in the back yard with a handkerchief tied over bis eye, and his nose seemed quite red. He has not been drinking again, has he?” i “No, pa is a reformed man, but he is nervous. He can’t stand still. The other day he was at the depot waiting for a train, and he walked up and down the platform all the time. Yon know them posts on the platform that holdj up the roof? Well, pa was walking along jabbing the point of his umbrella at tlie posts. He had walked for quite a while, jabbing the posts, and not thinking of anything, and unconscious that there was anybody around, when the point of the umbrella slipped off the post and run into the pocket of a woman’s dress, who was standing on the other side of the post, talking with a man. Well, she was scared, and grabbed the umbrella, and when she looked up at pa, she was mad. Pa hain’t got no sense about such things. He tried to smile, as though it was an accident, but when pa tries to smile, when it ain’t a natural smile, but forced, he looks as though he was grinning, and he looks crazy. The woman screamed when she saw pa smile, and thought he was trying to stab her, and pa pulled the umbrella to get it away, she pulled to keep from getting stabbed again, and the man with her, he hit pa, and struck him on the nose, and a baggage man grabbed pa from behind, and they called a depot I policeman, and he was going to kill pa. If pa had tried to exElain, it would have been all right, but e kept on smiling, and pulling at the umbrella, and he thought they were trying to rob him, and he kicked, and they had to put him on a baggage truck and wheel him away. He lost his umbrella, and when they turned him loose he run up an alley for home. It is his absent-mindedness that causes all the trouble. Jewhillikens, wh .t’s the matter with that strawberry? It feels as though it had been warmed by the stove. Whoosh!” and the boy got a drink of water as qu ck as he could, and he chewed the ice, while the grocery man went to dusting the cans ol fruit as though nothing had happened worthy of notice.— Peck’s Sun.