Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1883 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“There, you drop that," said the grocery man to the bed boy, as ha came limping into the store and began to fumble around a box of strawberries. “I have never kicked at your eating my codfish, and crackers, and eheese, and herring, and apples, but there has got to be a dividing line somewhere, and I make it at strawberries at 6 shillings a box, and only two layers in a box. I only bought one box, hoping some plumber or gas man would come along and bny it, and, by gum, everybody that has been in the store has sampled a strawberry out of that box, shivered as though it was sour, and gone off without asking the price,” and the grocery man looked mad, took a hatchet and knocked in the head of a barrel of apples, and said: “There, help yourself to dried apples." “O, I don’t want your strawberries or dried apples,” said the boy, as he leaned against a showcase and looked at a bar of red, transparent soap. “I was only trying to fool you. Say, that bar of soap is old enough to vote. I remember seeing it in the show-case when I was about a year old, and pa came in here with me and held me up to the show-case to look at that tin tobacco box, and that round zinc looking-glass, and the yellow wooden pocket-comb, and the soap looks just the same, only a little faded. If you would wash yourself once in a while your soap wouldn’t dry up on your hands,” and the boy sat down in the chair without any back, feeling that he was even with the grocery man. “You never mind the soap. It is paid for, and that is more than your father can say about the soap that has been used in his house the past month,” said the grocery man, as he split up a box to kindle the fire. “But we won’t quarrel. What was it I heard about a hand serenading your father, and his inviting them in to lunch?” “Don’t let that get out, or pa -will kill mo dead. It was a joke. One of these Bohemian bands that goes about town playing tunes, for pennies, Mas over on the next street, and I told pa I guessed some of his friends who had heard we had a baby at the house had hired a band and was coming in a few minutes to serenade him, and he better prepare to make a speech. Pa is proud, of being a. father at his age, and he thought it was no more than right for the neighbors to serenade him, and he went to loading himself for a speech, in the library, and me and my chum went out and told the leader of the band there was a family up there that \yanted to have some music, and they didn't care for expenses, so they quit blowing where they was and came right along. None of them could understand English except the leader, and he only understood enough to go and take a drink when he is invited. My chum the band up to our house and got them to play ‘Babies on Our Block’ and ‘Baby Mine,’ and I stopped all the men who were going home and told them to wait a minute and they would see some fun, so when the band got through the second tune and the Prussians were emptying the beer out of the horns, and pa stepped out on the porch, there was more nor a hundred people in front of the house. You’d a dide to see pa when he put his hand in the breast of his co >t and struck an attitude. . He looked like a Congressman or a tramp. The band was scared, ’cause they thought he was mad, and some of them were going to run, thinking he was going to throw pieces of brick-house at them, but my chum and the leader kept them. Then pa sailed in. He commenced, ‘Fellow-citizens,’and then went back to Adam and Eve, and worked up to the present dav, giving a history of the notable people who had acquired children, and kept the crowd interested. I felt sorry for pa, 'cause I knew how he would feel when he came to find out he had been sold. The Bohemians in the band that couldn’t understand English, they looked at each other and wondered what it was all about, and finally pa wound up by stating that it was every citizen’s duty to own children of his own, and then he invited the band and the crowd in to take some refreshments. Well, you ought to have seen that band come in the house. They fell over each other getting in, and the crowd went home, leaving pa and my chum and me and the band. Eat? Well, I should smile. They just reached for things, and talked Bohemian. Drink? O, no. I guess they didn’t poor it down. Pa opened a dozen bottles of champagne, and they fairly bathed in it, as though they had a fire inside. Pa tried to talk with them about the baby, but they couldn’t understand, and finally they got full and started out, and the leader asked pa for $3, and that broke him up. Pa told the leader he supposed the gentlemen who had got np the serenade had paid for the music, and the leader pointed to me and said I was the gentleman that got it -np. Pa paid him, but he had a wicked h>ok in his eye, and me and my chum lit out*.and the Bohemians came*down the street biliq,’ full, with their horns on their arms, and they were talking Bohemian for all that was out. They stopped in front of a vacant house and began to play, but yon couldn’t tell what tigne it was, they were so full, and a policeman came along and drove them Lome. I guess I will sleep at the livery stable to-night, cause pa is offal unreasonable when anything costs him $3, beside the champagne.” “Well, yon have made a pretty mess of it,” said the grocery man. “It’s a wonder your pa does not kill yon. But what is it I hear about tbe trouble at the churoh? They lay that foolishness to you.”

.fcrii’ f "Its all a lie. They lay everything to me. It was some of them ducks that sing in the ohoir. I was just as mnoh surprised ss anybody when it ooeurred. Yon see, oar minister is laid up from the effect of the ride to the funeral, when he tried to run over a street oar, and an old deaeon, who had symptoms of being a minister in his yonth, was invited to take the minister’s place, and talk a little. He is an absent-minded old party who don’t keep np with the events of the day, and whoever played it on him knew that he was too pious to even read the daily papers. There was a notice of a choir meeting to be read, and I think the tenor smuggled in the other notice between that and t]je one about the weekly prayer meeting. Anyway, it wasn’t me, bnt it like to broke np the meeting. After the deacon read the choir notice he took np the other one anti read, ‘I am requested to announce that the Y. M. C. Association will give a friendly entertainment with soft gloves, on Tuesday evening, to which all are invited. Brother John Sullivan, the eminent Boston revivalist, will lead the exeroises, assisted by Brother Slade, the Maori missionary from Australia. There will be no slugging, bnt a collection will be taken up at the door to defray expenses.” Well, I thought the people in church would sink through the floor. There was not a person in church, except the poor old deacon, but what understood that some wicked wretch had deceived him, and I know by the way the tenor tickled the soprano that he did it. I may be mean, but everything I do is innocent, and I wouldn’t be as mean as a choir singer for $2. I felt veal sorry for tho old deacon, but he never knew what he had done, and I think it would be real mean to tell him. He won’t bo at tho slugging match. That remark about taking up a collection settled the deacon. I must go down to the stable now to help grease a back, so you will have to excuse me. If pa comes hero looking for me, tell him.you heard I was going to drive a picnic party out to Waukesha, and may not be back in a week. By that time pa will get over that Bohemian serenade,” and the boy filled his pistol pocket with dried apples, and went out and hung a sign in front of tho grocery, “Strawberries two shitlin a smell, and one smell is enuff." — Peck’s Sun.