Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1884 — THE BAD BOY [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY

“Take care, there, yon will rail rightover the stove,” said the groce'ry man to the hod boy, as he came along the floor, his eyes fixed as though he were looking into tho future about two years, and bis mind so occupied that he did not seem to see the stove. “ What you thinking about ? Lately you have got so you think too much, and by and by you will be one of.-these vacaue'es that don’t know beans, people are getting so they-think too much, and especially boys. * Nothing liuits a bo*rso lunch as to get in the habit of think’ug. What tlid von have on vour mind when Von came in'-?” T “Oh. I was thinking of that feller down in tho Third Ward' thaFTuHSTW gill and' then killed himself, all on account of their religion being a different brand, so they couldn’t marry each other. Gosh, it don't seem us though religion ought to bar a feller out of the heaven of his girl's love, does it 2” said tLe boy. “Well,” said the grocery man, as lie wiped some sirup off his hinds on ~ar coffee sack, “you can't drive, two kinds of religion to the pole, in a family, with any kind of success. You may drive two kinds of religion single or tanib m, but when von hitch ’em up together, and they try to travel along at a good road gait, one will go off' its feet end gallop, while the other trots, and then tlie galloping rehg.on will catch and ebrno down to a trot, and the other will hr. sik up, and there they are, teg-p.M: ing,>and the air full of creeds a.id do • times, and there is danger they will run away and smash something. No, it is better for the people who are going --torn arry to have tnetr measures taken for. the same kind of religion, and then each can wear the other’s religion, and all will he lovely.” “I don’t know,” says the hail boy, taking an apple, “about this thing of waiting till you find out about a girl’s religion before you love her. Sometimes you can’t do it. If a girl has not got any sign out warning a fellow what kind of religion she has got concealed about her person, how is ho going to know until it is everlastingly too late? When a young feller falls in love with a girl, it is like falling down on skates. Everything seems to give way at once. It strikes him like a 6and-bag, and there he is, asphyxiated the first thing. He knows that she is perfect, and he takes her right into his heart and wraps his heart around her, and puts rubber weather strips oh all the cracks so she can’t get out, and her religion is the last thing he thinks of. If, her religion pulls her one way, and his heart pulls her ’tother way, something’s got to bust; sometimes it’s the religion that busts, and sometimes it’s the heart. I think there ought to be a convention composed of delegates from all kinds of religion, and let them make a law that any religion shall be legal tender anywhere, like a gold dollar. Religion ought to be pure gold, good anywhere. If a man comes in here to buy soap, and gives you a gold dollar, coined in Rome, or Jerusalem, or California, or China, or Russia, or the Feejee Islands, he gets hie soap, Bnt if your son is in love with a Hebrew girl, her religion says your son’s religion is counterfeit, and she goes to her grave with your son’s love in her heart, and he goes to the devil with her image in his heart, and both are ruined for life ’cause they couldn’t match their religions. A Baptist girl falls in love with a young fellow that is a perfect specimen of ' manhood, brave, noble, intelligent, tender to her, and as kind as a man can be, and they begin to plan for the clay when he can take her to a home and be all the world and a small section of heaven to her, when some day a friend says to her, “Your lover is one of the noblest men I ever saw, but it is-a pity he is a Catholic.” Then the trouble commences. He believes his religion is the grandest in the world, and she believes hers is no slouch; each tries to induce the other to adopt another religion, but it is a failure, and they drift apart in all except the buried love that can never be quenched on earth or in heaven. I tell you it is 'pretty tough to have so many different kinds I of religion that can’t be made to jibe; don’t you think so I” “Yes, it is rough,” said the grocery man, “but a little difference like that hadn’t ought to make a fellow kill the girl he loved.” “Course not,” said the boy. “This fehlCT snrdydidn’t love “the girl, else he wouldn’t shoot. Say, s’ppse you loved a girl, regular old spontaneous kind! Could you pull out a revolver and send two bullets into her pretty clidek, and cord her up against the fence dead? Naw, you couldn’t. Nor anybody else. He didn’t love that girl. He thought he did, but it was something else. You see, if he had loved her, not having any particular religion hisself, he would have let her take him by the hand and lead him to her church like a child, and he would have got down on his knees and prayed with her, and become her brother in the church, and then married her. But he was wrong iu the head, and when he found that she loved her church he got jealous of her religion, that was all, and as long as he couldn’t kill her religion, Jie killed her. By Jinks, if it was some fellows, they would join any church that ever was for the girl they loved. Pa says he knew a man that got in love with a Jewess, and her folks tried to stand him off, but he joined their church and opened a pawn shop, and got a rabbi to marry them on the sly, and when her folks came blowing around he pnt up his hand and shook it and said, ‘Hast dogeshen. Vot yon going to do apout it?’ Masays she and pa had a good deal of trouble about their religion before they weremarried. She was a Baptist and pa was a Democrat, but pa kicked when they nominated Greeley, and goes to her church now. Well, I must go down to the morgue and see tfye lovers that couldn’t - agree about going to heaven,” and the boy skipped.— Peck’s Sun. ~ Queen Posiabe V., <ff Tahiti, is an inveterate cigarette smoker. She is described as vivacious, affable, petite, and refined. She speaks English fluently, and, while not a handsome woman, is exceedingly good looking. In the bloom of, youth no ornament is so lovely as that of virtue.