Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1883 — HIS MA DECEIVES HIM. [ARTICLE]

HIS MA DECEIVES HIM.

Peek’* Sub. j J" ” ’ r< '*' • » “Give me ten cents worth of saffron, quick,” said the bad boy to the grocery man, as he came in the grocery on a gal. lop early one morning, with no collar on, and no vest. He looked as though he had been routed out of bed in a hurry.and had jumped into his pants and boots,and put on his coat and hat on a run. “I don’t keep saffron,” said the grocery man, as he picked up a barrel of ax handles the boy had tipped over in his hurry. “You want to go over to the drug store on the corner if yon want saffron. But what on earth is the mat—” At this point the boy shot out of the door,tipping over a basket of white beans, and disappeared in the drugstore. The grocery man got down on his knees on the sidewalk and scooped up the beans, occasionally looking over to the drug store, and just as he got them picked up the boy came out of the drug store and walked deliberately toward his home as though there was no particular hurry.. The grocery man looked after him, took up fn ax handle, spit on his hands and shouted to the boy to come over pretty soon as he wanted to talk with him. The boy did not come to the grocery till toward night, but the grocery man had seen him running down town a dozen times during the day, and once he rode up to the house with the doctor, and the grocer surmised what was the tn able. Along toward night the boy came in in a dejected sort of a tired way, sat down on a barrel of sugar, and never spoke.

“What is it, a boy or girl?” said the grocery man, winking at an old lady with a shawl over her head, who was trying to hold a paper over a pitcher of yeast with her thumb. “How in blazes did vou know anything about it,”said the boy as he looked around in astonishment, and with some indignation. “Weß, its a girl, if yeu must know and that’s enough.” and his face was the picture of dejection. “O, don’t feel bad about it,” said the grooeryman.as he opened the door for the old lady. “Such things are bound to occur. But you take my word for it, that young one is going to have ahardlife,unless you mend your ways. You will be using it for a cork to a jug, or to wad a gun with,the first thing your ma knows.” “I wouldn’t touch the darn thing with the tongs,” said the boy, as he rallied enough to eat some crackers and cheese. “Gosh, this cheese tastes good. I haint had nohting to ea f since morning. I have been all over this town trolling for nurses. They think a boy has-.’t got any feelings. But I wouldn’t care a gol darn, if ma had not bien sending me for neuralgia medicine and hay fever snuff, all winter, when she wanted to get rid of me. I have come in the room lots of times when ma and the sewing girl were at work on some flannel things, and ma would hide them in a basket and send me off after medicine. I was deceived up to about four o’clock this morning, when pa come to my room and pulled me out of bed to go over on the west side after some old wo-

men that knew ma,and they have kept me whooping ever since. What does a boy want of a sister, unless its a big sister. I don’t want no sister that I have got to hold, and rook,and hold a bottle for. This affair breaks me all up,” and the boy picked the cheese out of his teeth with a sliver he cut off the counter. “Well, how does your pa take it,” said the grocery man, as he charged the boy’s pa with cheese, and saffron, and a number of such things. “O, pa will pull through. He wanted to boss the whole concern until ma’s chum an old woman that takes snuff, fired him out into the hall. Pa sat there on my hand-sled, a perfect picture of despair, and J thought it would be a kindness to play it on him. I found the cat asleep in the bath room, and 1 rolled the cat up in a shawl and I brought it out to pa and told him the nurse wanted him to hold the baby. It seemed to do pa good to feel that he was indispensable around the house, and he took the oat on his lap as tenderly as you ever saw a mother hold an infant Well, I got in the back hall where he couldn’t see me, and pretty soon the oat began to wake up and stretch hisself, and pa said, ‘s-h-h-h-tootsy, go to sleep now, and let its pa hold it,* and pa he rocked back and forth on the handsled and began to sing ‘by, low, baby.’ That settled it with the cat. Well, some oats can’t stand music, .anyway, and the more the oat wanted to get out of the shawl, the louder pa sung, and bimeby I heard something rip, and pa yelled, ‘scat you brute,’ and when I looked around the corner of the hall the cat was bracing lifeself against pa’s vest with his toe nails and yowing, and pa fell over the sled and began to talk about the hereafter like the minister does when he gets excited in church, and then pa picked up the sled and seemed to be looking for me or the oat, but both of us was offul scarce. Don’t you think there are times when boys and oats are kind of few around their accustomed haunts? Pa don’t loofeaa thcngh he was very smart, but he can hold a oat

About, as wall Off Mm* yiforti m&D. Dut Xam sorry for ma. She was just getting ready to go to Florida for her neuralgia, and this will put a stop to it, cause she has to stay and take'care of that young one. .Pa says I will have a nice time. this summer pushing the baby wagon. By the great horn spoons, there is got to be a dividing line somewhere, between business and pleasure, and I strike the line at wheeling a baby. They needn’t procure no baby forme. I d druther have a prize-package. Pshaw, we have no more use for a baby than you have for a safe. WeU, lam sorry pa allowed me to come home, after he drove me away last week. I guess all he wanted me to come home for was to humiliate me, and send me on errands. WeU, I must go and see if he and the cat have made up. ’ And the boy went out and put up a paper sign in front of the store, “Leave your measure for saffron tea.”