THE BAD BOY DOES A GOOD ACTION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3771, 16 August 1883, Page 4

THE BAD BOY DOES A GOOD ACTION.

"Ah, ha, you have got your deserts at last," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with one eye black, and his nose peeled on one side, and sat down on a board across the cotil scuttle, and began whistling as unconcerned as possible. "What's the matter with your eye r , "

"Boy tried to gouge it out without asking my consent," and the bad boy took a dried herring out of the box and began peeling it. "Ho is in bed now, and his ma is poulticing him, and she says he will be out about the last of next week."

" 0, you arc going to bo a prize fighter, aint you," said the grocery man, disgusted. "When a boy leaves a job where hois working, and goes to loafing around, he becomes a fighter the first thing. What your pa ought to do is to bind you out with a farmer, where you would have to work all the time. I wish you would go away from here, because you look like one of those fellows that comes up before the police judge Monday morning and gets thirty days in tho house of correction. Why don't you go out and loaf around a slaugh-ter-house, where you would look nppropriate ?" and the grocery- man took a hairbrush and brushed some loose sugar and tea that was on the counter into the sugar barrel.

"Well, if you have got through with your sermon, I will toot a little on my liorn," and tho boy threw the remains of the herring , over behind a sack of potatoes, unci wiped hishands on a coif cc sack. '' If you had this black eye, and had got it the way I did, it would bo a more priceless gem in tho crown of glory you hope to wear than any gem you can get by putting- quarters in the collection plate, with the holes filled with lead, as you did last Sunday, when I was watching - you. 0, didn't you look juou.s when you picked that filled quarter out, and held, your thumb over the place where the lead was. Tho way of tho black eye was this : I got a job tending a soda fountain, and last night, just before wo closed, there was two or three young loafers in the place, and a girl came in for a glass of soda. Five years ago she was one of the brightest scholars in tho ward school when I was in tho intermediate department. She was just as handsome as a peach, and everybody liked her. At recess you used to take my part when the hoys knocked me around, and she lived near us. Who had a heart as big" as that checsc-box, and I g uc.ss that's what's the matter. Anyway, blio left school, and then it was paid she was going to be married to a fellow who is now in the dude business; but ho went back on her, and after a while her ma turned her out-doors, and for a year or two she was jerking beer in a concert saloon, until the Mayor stopped concerts. She tried hard to get sewing to do, but they wouldn't have her, I guess 'cause she cried so much -whim she was Hewing , , and the tears wet the cloth slio was .sewing on. Once I asked pa why ma didn't give her .some sewing to do, and lie said for mo to dry up and ncvci , speak to her if I met her on the street. It seemed tuff to pass her on the street, when she hud tears in her eyes as big as marbles, and not speak to her when I knew her so well, and she had been so kind to me at school, just 'cause a dude wouldn't marry her, but I wanted to obey pa, so I used to walk around a block when I see her coming, 'cause I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Well, last night she came in the store, looking pretty shabby, and wanted a glass of soda, and I gavo it to her; and oh! how her hand trembled when she raised the glass to her lips, and how wet her eyes wore, and how palo her fuco was. I chocked up so I couldn't speak Avhen she handed me the nickel, and when she looked up at me and smiled, just like she use to, and said I was getting to be almost a man since we went to school at tho old school-house, and put her handkerchief to her eyes, by gosh, my oyes got so full I couldn't tell whether it was a nickel or a lozenger she gavo me. Just then one of those loafers began to laugh at her, and call her names, and say the police ought to take her up for a stray, and ho made fun of her until she cried some more, and I got hot and went around to where he waa and told him if lie said another unkind word to that girl I would maul him. He laughed and asked if she "was my sister, and i told him that a poor friendless girl, who was sick and in distress, and who was insulted, ought to bo every boy's sister for a minute, and any boy who had a spark of manhood should protect her, and then ho laughed and said I ought to bo one of tho Little Sisters of the Poor, and ho took hold of her faded shawl and pulled the weak girl against the show-case, and said something- mean to her, and sllQ looked as though she wanted to die, and I mashed that boy right on the nose. Well, the air seemed to be full of me for a minute, cause ho was bigger than me, and ho got me down and got his thumb in my eye. I guess ho was going to take my eye out, but I turned him over and got on top and I maided him until he begged, but I wouldn't let him up till ho asked tho girl's pardon, and swore he would whip any boy that insulted her, and I then let him up, and the girl thanked me ; but I told her 1 couldn't apeak to her, 'cause she was tuff, and pa didn't want mo to speak to anybody who was tuff, but if anybody ever insulted her so sho had to cry, that I would whip him if I had to take a club. I told pa about it, and I thought ho would be mad at me for taking tho part of a girl that was tuff, but by gosh, pa hugged me, and the tears come in his eyes, and he said I had got go dC | blood in me, and I did just right; a- ie I would show him tho father of '" ne * jj Oy that I whipped, pa said he would AV "i U p old man, and ma said for r ae to find the poor girl and send her up tr, tho hou and shn would give her a jo 1 ,, m . l]d illow _ cases and night-shuts. Don>t it Bern darn queer to you that everybody goes back on a W ,v S ll ' 1 cl, .use p, no makes a mistake, and w - cd whelp that is to blamo gets a F fll "jmo. It makes me tired to think of it;" and the hoy got up and shook himself, and looked In tho cracked mirror hanging upon a past to see how his eye was getting iilong.

'' Say, young follow, you are a thorough - bred," said tho grocery man aa ho sprinkled some water on tho asparagiw and lettuce ; " and you can come iv here and get all the honing you want, and never mind the black eye. I wish I had ifc mysolf. Yes, it docs seem tough to sco peoplo never nllow a girl to reform."—looks Sun.