Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Hello, where you been?” said the groceryman to the bad boy, as he came along with an old-fashioned oilcloth carpet-bag, with one handle gone, and a tired look on the carpet-bag and the boy, as though they had just returned from a journey. “Haven’t seen you in here for two weeks, and I began to think you had been abducted, or mysteriously disappeared. You look sick.” “Oh, I am not sick, but tired and sleepy and hungry. I wish yoa would cut me off a cheese-rind, or give me a herring-skin, or anything,” said the bad boy, as he dropped the carpet-bag on the floor and dropped onto a halfbushel measure and closed his eyes. “We are just on the way from "the depot, and pa has left me to carry this old carpet-sack, and he has gone up the alley to climb over the back fence, cause he wore his boots out on the railroad ties coming up from the Chicago convention.” “What! Had to walk back!” said the groceryman, as he handed the boy a generous slice of cheese with a spot of green mold on the under side. “I should suppose your pa had influence enough to get a pass, or borrow money to get h«ne with, if he got busted.” “That’s what pa thought,” said the boy, as he made a camel’s track in the piece of cheese, and then, making up a face at the moldy mouthful, reached into a cracker barrel to get some crackers to take the taste out. “But borrowing was played out the second day. Pa lent money for two days, and then had to borrow, but they had all quit lending when pa’s turn came to borrow. Gosh, but pa and I are out of politics from this out. Pa says he will never vote again. He says the country is all gone to the dogs.” “Well, what was your pa down there for, anyway? He wasn’t a delegate, was he ?” asked the groceryman. “No, pa was only an assistant delegate, and I was pa’s assistant,” said the boy, as he gathered in groceries and provisions with both hands, and ate as though he had fasted for several days. “You see, the politicians have been playing it on pa for six months. They get him to work in ward politics by encouraging him to think he is an important factor in the country’s affairs. He wanted to be a delegate, and they encouraged him, but he got beat, and then they told him he had better go as an assistant delegate. They told him that delegates did not amount to anything without some smart fellows to tell them how to vote, and what they wanted was a of outsiders to go along and brace up the delegates, and ‘whoop-it-up.’ There is nothing that pa likes any better than to whoop-it-up, and he took me along to give me an insight into politics and carry the sachel. I don’t want any more insight into politics. I have had insight enough to last me until I am 21. Pa told me, all the way down to Chicago, what an important position it was to be assistant delegate, and how much depended upon clear-headed outsiders, who really managed the whole business. I expected they would carry pa on their shoulders. There was a band at the depot, and pa pulled up his collar, and pulled down his vest, and looked around as much as to say, ‘watch me now,’ and I thought he was going to make a speech, when the crowd walked right over him, and his hat come off and rolled under a car, and somebody picked it up and left an old dirty hat on the ground. Pa was mad, but when the crowd got away that was all the hat there was, and pa took it and gave it to me, and he took mine. It was to® small for pa, but it made him look as though he had a great big head, and so I didn’t kick. We went to a hotel, and a man grabbed the sachel, and told pa to go to room 1250, and pa was tickled, ’cause he thought a room had been saved for him. Then a fellow came along and said for the delegates to put on badges. Pa took a badge and put it on, and he looked proud, and a fellow he used to know asked him for $5 till he could see the chairman of the delegation. Pa took out his pocket-book and let him have it, and before he got the pocket-book in his pocket another fellow asked him for change for a ten, and pa handed it to him, and the crowd closed in so tight pa could not find the man to get the ten. Then we went to find our room, and wandered around the hotel until we found there were only 600 rooms, and no such room as twelve-fifty, and a porter told us to get out. Pa kicked because he couldn’t get his satchel, and a big fellow took him by the neck and led him out on the sidewalk. Pa said he would make ’em smart for that, and then we tried to hunt up the rest of the delegates, but no delegate would have anything to do with pa, and they all laughed at him except the colored delegates, and they wouldn’t do anything only drink" with pa. They laughed so much at pa’s badge that I took a good look at it, and found that it was an advertisement for plug tobacco printed on satin with fringe on it. Pa was mad when he found it out, but he couldn’t find the delegate that gave it to him. Well, we went to a restaurant and tried to get something to eat, and all we, could get was bread, and pa had his pocket picked, and we couldn’t get a place to sleep, and walked around town all night. Pa got a little sleep by spelling a policeman, but I didn’t sleep a wink. Half the night there were delegations marching around with bands, and pa would fall in behind, and the delegate* at the rear of the procession would drive him away. In the morning we went over to the depot and borrowed fifty cents of a conductor that pa knew, who goes to our church, and then we got coffee for breakfast, and started for the convention. We couldn’t get within four blocks of the building, and didn’t have no tickets, and they drove us out of the line. Pa found one of the men who encouraged him to go to the convention, and tried to get a ticket, but the man told pa to go over on the lake front, back of the Exposition Building, and he would bring him a ticket. We went over there and stayed four hours, and the man never ame. Pa got thirsty, and followed a •rowd into a saloon to tsike a drink with them, and the bar-tender fired him >ut. O, it was one continual round of pleasure. Pa was discouraged, and

said we would go to the hotel and get our satchel and go home, so we went there and asked for the satchel, and the porter threw this old satchel at pa’t head. It was one somebody had tried to get board on, and there was nothing in it, but pa took it He said it would look better to travel with a satchel. So we got enough convention and went over and got on a freight train, and th< conductor put us off at Evanston, and we walked to the next station and got on another, and was put off, and we kept it up, off and on, till we got here. Say, I think politics is a fraud, don’t you ?” “That is the way I have always looked at politics,” said the groceryman, and the bad boy got up to go out, saying, “I am*a little interested in knowing how Sa will explain this business to ma. Ee has been making her believe he was high up in politics, and to come home in this way will be sure to arouse her suspicions,” and the boy hobbled out with the satchel in his hand and a stone bruise on his heel— Peck’s Sun.