Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Did your chum show up on his return trip from Kalamazoo?" ashed the grocery man of the bad boy, as he came in and began peeling a encumber. “Tee; he got to Bay View at the appointed time, and I met him with some of my pants and a coat. He had a shirt, or a part of one,* and a hat. But, O my! how he looked when he came up the railroad track. If every boy in this country who thinks of running away from home could have seen my chum on his return from his trial trip with the circus, there would be less runaways. He was thin, and seemed to have grown a foot longer than when he went away, and he was hungry. The first thing he asked me for was a bologna, and I gave him a link, and he couldn’t eat it fast enough, and he tried to talk and hug me with the bologna in his mouth. I like hugging as well as anybody, but when a fellow hugs me with a stick of bologna sausage in his mouth, and the end of the sausage runs down my shirt collar, I have got enough. I told my chum not to be too demonstrative, an<r~fib let up, and we went down behind the rolling mill so he could put on my clothes. I brought him some clothes that I wore two years ago, and they were too quick for him. They fit him too near, and when he got his hind legs in the pants his feet and ankles and the calves of his legs went clear through, and I don’t know but the pants would have kept on going clear up above his knees if I had not grabbed hold of them and held them down. The lower end of his legs were tanned, and they looked like a couple of sassidges that the ulster has been peeled off of. The coat was too small, and my chum was inclined to find fault, but when I told him he couldn’t expect all the luxuries of the season, bologna and a drees suit, he said he was thankful to get home and even get into such clothes as that. He said he wondered if the veal that the prodigal son’s pa fed him with when he got back from the Stock Yards tasted as good as that bologna. Well, after dark I took my chum home, and I had been to his pa and ma, and got them to crying beforehand about their boy being far away, and no one knew whether he was suffering or not, and I got his pa to say he would forgive him if he would only come home, so it was easy enough for my chum, cause they nearly hugged him half to death, and his pa was so tickled he cried, and then he told us how he ran away once when he was a boy, and then I came away and left them, and they were awful happy, and there will be no more running away there, I tell you. Say, this is a pretty good cucumber, ain’t it ? “Good enough cucumber,” said the grocery man, as he went to the book and charged the boy’s father with four cucumbers. “But 1 have often wondered what made you peel a cucumber eight square. There, yon see those slices you eat are octagon shape. What good does that do ?” “Well, you see, cucumbers give a fellow kolick. Now, if the cucumber goes down you solid and round like, the cholera morbus medicine has to go to work and bore a hole right thre agh the whole mass of cucumber. Now, I peel them eight square and swallow the pieces whole, and they lay right on top of each other inside of me, like a stack of poker chips, and when I have kolick I swallow pain killer, and it goes right down the sides of the stack of cucumber chips, where I peeled it, and fills up the air chambers with red peppersauce, and knocks your kolick higher nor a kite. I am going to get that patented.”

“You are an original fellow, sure. But what is this I hear about the church going for your pa for going fishing on Sunday? He ought to know better than that,” and the grocery man looked as though he had lost confidence in everybody. “Pa didn’t go fishing, and when the matter comes up in the church I can clear pa in a minute, though appearances were very much against him. You see, all our family, and one Of the deacon’s families, and several other folks that belong to our church, went out riding last Sunday in the country, cause the minister was having a vacation, and we went to one of the little lakes, where there is hotels, and we laid on the bank and sweat all day, and eat lunch, and catched bugs in our trousers, and did everything but fish. None of us would fish on Sunday, though we watched the. people catch fish, as they rowed around near the shore in boats. It’s awful tantalizing to see people catch fish as fast as they can pull them out, when you can’t go fishing. One woman got a big ba son her hook and it was all ma could do to keep pa from wading right in and helping her land it. He didn’t touch her polo, but he told her, in a few wellchosen remarks how to handle the fish, though she was a total stranger to him. Well, when we all got in the bus to come home, a boy who had a b g string of fish asked me if he couldn’t hitch them on under* hind axletree of our bus, and I didn’t think it would be any harm, so I told him to hitch ’em on. I thought it would save him lugging them all the way home, and he said when we got home I could take them in our house, and he would walk home and call for them in the evening. No one knew the boy hitched his fish on our wagon but me, and as we rode along home I noticed people on the streets looked at the fish and laughed. One place there was a crowd on the sidewalk, and they all laded, and one skoffer hollered to the deacon that was on the seat with pa, and said, ‘You had pretty good luck for Sunday, didn’t you, deacon ?’ Pa looked at the deacon, and the deacon look at pa, but they didn’t know what the wicked man meant. Some of the fellows on the sidewalk up to ward our house would ask the deacon if be used minnows or a spoon hook, or angle worms, and, when we stopped at our house, about forty people came to look at the fish. Well, you’d a dide to see pa and the deacon, and ma and the deacon’s wife, when they jumped out of the ’bus and saw the people, and then saw the fish. The deacon leaned against a tree-box, and turned pale, and said, ‘A charge to keep I have,’ pa turned green, and ma turned blue, and I thought the deaeoi’s wife would turn a back summersault off the back step

of the 'bus. One neignl>or went up to pa and said, ‘Where did you catch ’em. Squire?’ and another tried to find out from the deacon all about it, and I was under the wagon uni tying the string, when pa braced up : enough to ask me where them fish come from, and I tried to tell him about the little boy who-was tired and asked permission to tie his string of fish to our wagon to save carrying them so far, and I thought it would be real kind to help him; and the crowd laughed and ; wouldn’t believe it, and they chaffed pa and the deacon till I got the fish on the sidewalk. If pa ha<lii’t been a church member I should say I heard him use some very peculiar words to me for lending a helping hand to that poor, tired little boy. Say, do you think I did wrong, Mr. Groceryman, when I had been taught to be kind to those who were in distress ?" “If I had been your pa I would have broke you in two, and I would have made you swallow a pickerel whole, tail first. You might have known people would think your pa and the deacon caught the fish,” said the grocery man. “ What did you do with them ?” “O, I put them in the ice box, and the boy came after them after" dark But the meanest thing, I thought, was for pa to take two of the biggest fish from the boy for bringing them home. If I have to testify before the ehnrch committee as to pa’s innocence I ghn.ll mention that matter about his eating some of the fish, and then the deacen will be mad because he didn't get any. Well, I must go,” and the boy held his hand on his stomach, and looked surprised, as though he had a bite, and went home to find the pain-killer.— Peck r*s Sun.