Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

- “What’s the trouble now between you •Mid your pa?” asked the grocery man of the bad boy, as he came down the alley on a jump, after climb.ng over , the back fence at his house in a hurry, ; attired only in pants and shirt and a ■ cyat of prespiratidn. "There’s your pa ; looking over the fence now, and shak- ! ing a piece of barrel stave this way. 1 What have you been up to?” “O, just been doing what pa told me ■ to,“ said the boy, as he picked up the ' cover of a raisin box and began to fan himself. “You see. pa is one of these ■ funny fellows. ‘ln a cold day in winter , he will come to the table aud ask ina where his linen coat is, and why she don’t jint up the mosquito-bars. lie thinks it is smart. This morning it was hot enough to roast eggs on the sidewalk, and pa came down to breakfast and asked where his sealskin cap and gloveswere, and then he turned to me and said, ‘Hennery why haven’t yen built a tire in the furnace? Want us all to freeze to death ? If you ean’t keep a tire in the furnace I will know the reason why,’ and then he laughed, and w.ped the perspiration off his face. I thought it would be a good joke to take pa at his word, and show him that two could be cunning as well as one, so I went down in the basement aud built a tire in the furnace, with kindling wood, and put on a lot of coal. After breakfast pa sat down in the parlor to read the paper, and he began to get a hot box. It was warm enough without any tire, about ninety in the shade, and pa began to heat up. I went through the parlor and I said I guessed it was going to be a scorcher, and a man would get sunstruck if he went outdoors. Pa is afraid of being sunstruck, so he wouldn’t go out. He sat there trying to read, and pulled off his coat and vest and collar and cuffs and boots, and tried to find a cool, place. He went up stairs, but it was hotter there, and he came down, pulling. The minister and two deacons called to talk with pa about the picnic they are going to liave next week, and they said it was the hottest day ever was. Pa said if hell was any hotter than Milwaukee it had no charms for him, and the minister said this weather was a refrigerator car in comparison with what pa would encounter hereafter if he didn’t change his course. Pa was mad at the minister for beiug so personal, but he went on talking about the picnic. The minister looked at the thermometer, and it was a hundred and six, and he said he didn’t go out of that house till after suudown, not if he knew it. Pa suggested that the minister and the deacons take off their coats and things, and so they stripped off their things and sat around and lo;led. The minister said as pa was the committee on lemonade for the picnic he had better make some then, so that they could see if he knew h.s business, and pa sent me to the kitchen to make some. There was only one lemon, so I asked the girl for some lemon extract, and she gave me a bottle of citrate of magnesia, which she said was so near like lemonade they couldn’t tell the difference, and I poured a quart of that in the lemonade pitcher, aud sweetened it and took it in the parlor. Well, you’d a dide to see them drink it, and perspire. They talked picnic and looked at the thermometer, and spoke disrespectfully of the weather, and I sat around and watched them from on top of the ice-box about au hour, when suddenly they didn’t drink any more lemonade - , cause it was all gone. Pa went in the kitchen, and I saw him examining the bottle that I got the lemon extract out of, and he picked up a piece of barrel-stave and went back in the parlor, and just then the minister, iyho had sat his chair over the register, to get the draft of cold air, told pa there was hot air coming up the register, and pa and the deacons examined all the registers, and found that the air was hot, and then they looked at each other, and pa came to the door and spoke kindly and said: ‘ Hennery, come in here, your pa wants to speak to you about something,’ but I knew he was holding that barrel stave behind him to hide it, and I didn’t come here, Hennery,’ not very much. I think a boy can ’most always tell when it is healthy not to ‘come here, Hennery.’ Just as the minister looked at the thermometer and said it was a hundred and twenty, and ma came in the front door from her marketing, and shouted fire, I went out the back way ami got dver the fence a little ahead of the barrel stave, which struck the fence right under me. I ain’t no coward, but I am like the fellow that run away from the fight and said, as soon as the chairs and bungstarters began to fly through the air, he decided to get out honorably, and the only way to get out honorably was to get out quick. Pa will get over being mad at 12 ;30, and I will go home to dinner; I guess the picnic meeting has adjourned, as the minister and the deacons are coming up the sidewalk with their coats on their arms. Pa is one of these fellows that likes a joke if it is on somebody else. The other day a friend*was at onr house, and pa wanted to play a joke on him, so he said he would get him around back of' the house, and get him into a ham- i mock, and as soon as he was in he wanted me to reach around the corner of the house and cut the hammock rope on the tree and let him down. When I thought it was about time for pa to get the man in the hammock, I cut the rope and came out to help pa laugh at the fellow. I laughed, but I I was surprised to find that the fellow was sitting on a bench and pa had gone down with the ’ hammock, and he was making up the awfulest face ever was. His pante were split from Dan to Beersheba, and he made a dent in the ground as big as a six-quart milk pan. The feller laughed, but pa was mad, and said I didn’t have no sense. He wanted to know why I didn’t look what I was doing, and when I told him I did, he was mad again, and said I didn’t have no veneration, how was I to blame? I did just as pa told me to. How was I to know it was pa in the hammock instead of the other fellow. It is mighty hard to do everything right, ain’t it? Don’t you think our folks are in luck that I do so few things wrong?” The grocery man said he (thought, they were in luck that they weje alive,

I and as the bad boy went opt the back I door his pa came in the front door and asked the price of lettnee, and looked all around the store as though he had lost something about’ the size of the , bad boy.— Peck's Sun. .