Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“Come in, come in," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he stopped on the doorstep outside the grocery to go down into his pistol pocket for a little change for a tramp that had come out of the grocery just ahead of the grocery man’s boot. “Come right in, and don’t stand there talking with such cattle,” and the grocery man looked as mad as though he had left the spigot of the molasses barrel running. “What’s the matter with you ?” said the bad boy, as be watched the tramp go into a bakery and come out with a loaf of bread* and go off chewing the end of it as though it was the sweetest morsel a white man ever put a tooth into, and the smile the tramp showed on one side of the bread as he saluted the bad boy through the window was worth a dollar to the boy. “You seem to have got out of the wrong end of the bed this morning. What ails you?” the tramps, and beggars, andsubscriptions, and games to beat an honest man out of his hard-earned money,” said the grocery man, as he threw a hatchet on the floor with which he had been splitting up a box, and kicked a market basket across the room. “There is not a day but some one comes in here after money. Why don’t people that haven’t got any money go to the poor-house ? Why don’t sick people go to the hospitals ? Condemn it! I have had people come in here for help for the Old Ladies’ home, and the Old Men’s home, and to sell ball tickets to help people that have been sand-bagged, till I hope I may never see another person asking for help as long as I live.” .

“And you never would see another person asking for help, or coming to buy any of your decayed groceries, if they knew what kind of a hard-hearted old pirate you was. Why, blast your old vinegar countenance, you haven’t got a heart biggei - than a mustard seed.” said the boy, as he picked up the hatchet for fear the grocery man would split him for kindling wood. “Yes I have, ” said the grocery man, and he appeared a little ashamed of what he had said. “My heart is all right, bnt they play it on me. The other day I gave a tramp 5 cents to buy bread, and he went and bought a glass of beer at a free-lunch place. That made me mad.” “Well, bread, plain dry bread, is pretty hard eating. How wrould yon like t ogo on ton tli e s ickwalk and gn law a dinner off a loaf of dry bread ? The tramp knew his business. He could go gto a saloon with that nickel and buy a glass of beer as though he had a bushel of money, and while he was drinking it he could go to the lunch counter and get sausage, and rye bread, and head cheese, and liver, and cold ham, all for nothing. If you had only a nickel left, and had a full-sized stomach, perfectly empty, which would you do, stand out on a cold corner and chew bread, with no water nearer than the lake, or would you go into a nice warm saloon, buy a glass of beer and have a big dinner thrown in for a chromo. By gosh, yon would go to the saloon, and yon would make the lunch counter look sick. Nobody else keeps a warm place for tramps to eat free lunches by buying 5 cents’ worth of goods, and a tramp would be a fool if he didn’t take advantage of such a chance, when the thermometer is 30 degrees below zero.” “I swow, I don’t know but you are right, Hennery,” said the grocery man, with a forced smile. “I guess I would paralyze that lunch. But a man has no business to beatramp. Why don’t they go to work ?”

“Work ? Why don’t you give one of them -work? Nobody has any work for a tramp. A tramp may bo a son of a member of Congress, but if he has been on the turf until he has had to pawn his clothes, one article after another, to keep from starving, and looks hard, you don’t want him. He may be more honest than you are, and better educated, but his clothes are thin, and he looks seedy, and cold, and hungry, and hasn’t got any money. You do not stop to think that he may be a thoroughbreds You fire him out, and he gets so he thinks there isn’t a man in the world with a soul. If he steals, it is to keep him from Starring, and not to lay up money, like some gocers.” “Hold on there, boy. I don’t steal—said the grocery man? “But, tramps are all right enough. These old people’s homes, where old men and women are kept in idleness, is what makes me tired. Why don’t they go and live with their folks?” “Well, you are a smart Aleck,” said the boy. “Why don’t they live with their folks? That is good. Do you suppose these old people would go to a charitable home if they had one of their own? They have outlived relatives and friends who would take care oi ithem, and go to the home, where kind-hearted strangers make the last day of their lives as happy as possible, and they depend upon what they can get from people who have hearts, to pay the expenses, and it is not often .that, any person with a soul kicks at a little contribution towards banking up -the -stomachs of the old people who have been pioneers when the country was mew. Many of these old people, whom you find fault with for being old and poor, were rich and respected when you were poor and ignorant, and it es possible you may be closed out by yom creditors some day, and have to go ito a poor-house, and then you <can appreciate it -when some other blasted skinflint refuses to contribute to your support. But you will not be troubled anv more by people calling for aid, fori shall have a sign painted and nailed up on the corner, saying there is no use of any person in need of aid to keep them from want and suffering coming t® you, for you are down on poor people and consider them dead beats, and that you will kick any person out doors who comes in asking for anything, and that you growl and grumble mpre over giving away a nickel than some people would in giving $5. I will fix you so that von can enjoy a quiet life. Let me take that box cover and a paint pot a minute, please.” .“No, you don’t,” said the grocery man, pale with shame and excitement. “You don’t put .up no sign. What I said about giving to the poor was said

in a moment or passion, when f had a hot box, but yon have showed me what a blasted old fool I am, and hereafter I will give freely to anybody that comes. Great o;esar, I wouldn’t have such a sign put up for SI,OOO. It would ruin my business.” “Well, don’t ever say anything again alfcut charity that you would be ashamed to see in print,” and, the bad boy went dut whistling “The Dotlet on the Eye.”— Peck’s Sim.