Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Say, come in here while 1 |pve you a piece of advice,” said the grocery man to the bad bov, as the youth entered the grocery one cpld morhlng, with an old veteran from the Soldiers’ Home, who went up to the coal Btove and nibbed his hands, and turning to the old veteran, the grocery man added, “No, sir, you can’t have any plug tobacco, unless you have got the money to plank right down on the counter, and I would rather you wouldn’t come here to trade any way, because you look hard, and smell frowsy, and my customers don't like to mix np with you.’’ The old veteran warmed his hands and went out, with a tear in his eye, and the groceryman took thebad boy to the back end of the store and said: “ You want to let the old soldiers alone. Ydur pa was in here last night, and lie said he was ashamed of you. He said he and your ma were out riding, find lie saw you walking np towards the Home with soldieis on each side of you, holding On your arms, and your pa thinks they were drunk. Now, von ought ho be ashamed. Let. those old soldiers alone. They are a bad lot,” and the groceryman acted as though he had been the means of saving the boy from a terrible fate. The boy was so mad he couldn’t speak for a minute, and then he said: “You and pa are a pretty crowd to go 1 back on soldiers, ain’t you ? How long ! lias it been since you were humping 1 yourself aronnd this town trying to hire a substitute to go to war for yotr?~ Then a soldier who volunteered was the noblest work of God, and you helped pass resolutions to the effect that the country owed a debt of gratitude to them that could never be paid. Every dollar pa has got, except what he won playing poker before he reformed, he got out of soldiers when he was sutler of a regiment. Every mouthful I eat now is the price of a soldier’s wages, who spent his money with pa for brandy-peaches and sardines. Pa wasn’t ashamed of soldiers then, when they got drunk on brandy-peaches he sold to them, and at that time a soldier would have been welcome to a plug of tobacco out of your store, and now you turn an old wounded veteran out of your store because he hasn’t got 5 cents to buy tobacco. ” “There, there, ” said the grocery man, becoming ashamed of himself. “You don’t understand your pa’s situation, or mine, you see ” “Yes, I see,” said the bad boy, “Isee it all just as plain as can be, and it is my turn to talk, and I am going to talk. The time is passed when you need the soldier. When you wanted him to stand between you and the Tif the enemy," he was a thoroughbred, and you smiled when he came in the store, and asked him to have a cigar. When he was wounded you hustled aronnd and got together sanitary stores, such as sauerkraut and playing cards, and sent them to him by the fastest express, and yon prayed for mm, and when he 1 ad whipped the ’ enemy you welcomed him home with open arms and said there was nothing too good for him forever after. He should always bs? remembered, his children should be cared for and educated, and all that. Now he is old, his children have died or grown up and gone West, and you do not welcome him any more. He comes in here on his wooden leg, and all you think of is whether he has got any pension money left. His old eyes are so weak he cannot see the sneer with which you, drafted patriot, who sent a substitute I to war, looks at him as he asks you for I a plug of tobacco and agrees to pay you I when he draws his next pension, and he : goes out with a p.rin in his great big heart such as you will never feel unless you have some codfish spoil on your hands Bah! You patriots make me tired.” “You are pretty hard On us,” and the groeerymaii acted hurt. “ The Government paid the soldiers, and gives them pensions, and all that, and they ought to know better than to get drunk. ” “Paid them,” said the boy, indignantly. “What is $4 a month pension to a man who has lost his arm, or who has bullet holes all over him? If a train runs over a man’s leg, the railroad is in luck if it does not. have to pay SIO,OOO. What does the soldier get? He gets left half the time. I Sin*opposed to ;Xiepple as long as pa and lots of the best people in town get drunk when they feel like it, why is it worse Tor an old soldier, who lias no other way to have fun and feel rich, to get drunk ? If you had to live at the Soldiers’ Home, and work on the road, and do farm work, for your board, yon would get full as’ a goose when you came to town. Outside of the Home grounds the old soldier feels free. Ho I looks at the bright .sunshine; inhales i God’s free air, walks ppriglit toward ! town, and, just as his old wound begins } to ache, lie sees a beer sign, and instead j of the words * man that is born of | woman is of few days and full of : woe,’ coming to his mind, hj? thinks of ! the words of the Constitution, ‘ all men are born free and equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ and be goes in and orders a schooner of beer, like a white man. The saloon is the only place on God’s green earth where the old wounded veteran is free and equal, and ho makes the inost of it. When he gets full lie is the prey of foolish boys, like fire bugs, who have fun jeering him, and they snow-ball him, and say, ‘look at the old drunkip-d.’ If he lavs down on the railroad track and is killed by the cars, you read in the paper of ‘another veteran killed.’ Your only anxiety is as •to whether he is the same euss yo l trusted for the tobacco last summer, and the soldier is buried without a tear. .Now,.! have had it .jfeftYC mt? iae_bjr the conversation of people older than ine, by newspapers and by resolutions that have been passed before I was born* that a soldier is one of the salt of the earth. Y r ou may say that the idea is outlawed, and that when you have got throngli having use for a soldier that lie becomes a thing unworthy to bo recognized, bat as long oa I live a man who fought to save n»y country can have a share of what I hayo got, and I will help him home when lie is full of benzine, and whip any hoy

that throws snow-balls at liun, or cadis him names, if you and pa and the whole gang goes J&ack an igp, and don’t you for get it. The failed blue overcoat of the veteran looks better to me, if I mil bad, than the swallow-tail coat of the dude, the diamonds of the millionaire, or the sneers of the darn fools who have no souls. Yon can all class me with barn burners, and cruel sons of rich people who have no hearts, but the smile of pleasure on the face of en old veteran when I speak kindly to him, and the tear of joy that comes from the broken heart and plows its way down the furrows of his cheek, as he searches in his pocket for a red bandana handkerchief, makes me feel us though I owned a brewery.” “Say, hold on, Hennery,” said the grocery man, as his eyes became dim, “You go out and call that soldier back and tell him he is a friend of mine. By gum, I never felt so much like a pirate in my life. You are right. The old soldiers are not to blame for taking in a little too much benzine once in a while. If wc were all bunged up, and had ho homes of our own, and were looked upon by a good many people as though they thought it was time we died and were got out of the* way, we would get bjling drunk, and paint the town red. Why, when these same soldiers enlisted, and were quartered in town, or were passing through on their way to the front, we used to think it was darned smart when they got on a tear and m de things howl, and we would have lynched a policeman that tried to arrest the boys. I had forgot that these were the same boys, these old felloes that go limping around. Hennery, you have learned me a lesson, and' I shall be proud hereafter to see you kind to an old soldier, even if he is drunk, and if your pa says any more about bringing disgrace on the family by being seen with old soldiers, I will hit him in the ear and twit him with being a sutler in the army.” “Well, that is all right,” said the bad boy, as he started to go; “but don’t you ever act sassy again when an old soldier comes inhere to get warm; and if he wants a plug of tobacco and hasn’t got the money, you let him have it, just as though he owned a block of buildings, and if he forgets to pay for it, I will bring in coal or saw wood for you to pay for it,” and Hennery went out whistling “We’ll all get blind drunk when Johnny comes marching 'home,” and then he explained that the song was very popular a few years ago, when people were so glad to have the soldiers come home that some, of the best citizens got drunk.— Peck's Sun.