THE BAD BOY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3817, 9 October 1883, Page 4

THE BAD BOY.

" AVhafc you sitting there like a bump on a log for r" asked the gvoceryman of the bad "boy, as the youth had sat on a box tor half an hour, Avith his hands in his pockets, looking at a hole in tho floor unlil_ his eyes Avero set like a dying horse. AVhat you thinking of anyway ? It seems to mo boys sot around and think more than they used to Avhen I Avas a boy," and the grocery man brushed the wilted lettuce and shook it, and tried to make it stand up stiff and crisp, before he put it out of doors, but tho contrary lettuce, Avhich had been picked the day before, looked so tired that the boy noticed it. "That lettuce reminds mo of a girl. _ cstcrday I Avas iv here when it was now, like the girl going to the pic-nic, and it Avas as fresh and proud, and starched up, and kitteny, and full of life, and as sassy as a girl going out for a pic-nic. To-day it has got back from the pic-mc, and like the o-irl the starch is all taken out, and it is limber, and languid, and tired, and can_t st-md. up alone, -md it looks as though it wanted to bo laid at rest beside tho rotten apples iv the alley, rather than bo set out in front of a store to be sold to honest people, and give them the gangrene of the liver," and the boy put on a health-corn-mb.sioner air that frightened the groceryman, and he threw tho lettuce out the back door. "You never mind about my lettuce," said the groceryman. I can attend to my affairs. But now tell mc what you were thinking about hero all the morning." _ "I was thinking Avhat a fool King Solomon Avas," said tho boy Avith the air of one Avho has made a statement that has got to be argued pretty strong to make it hold water. "Noav, look a here," said the_ groceryman, in anger, "I have stood it to have you play tricks on mc, and have listened to your condemned foolishness without a murmur as long as you havo confined yourself to people now living, but Avhen you attack Solomon, tho Avisest man, the great King, and call him a fool, friendship ceases, and you must get out of this store. Solomon in all his glory, is a friend of mine, and no fool boy is going to abuse him in mv presence. Now you dry up !" "Sit down on tho ice box," said the boy to the grocery man. "AVhat you need is rest. You are overworked. Your alleged brain is equal to wilted lettuce, and it can devise Avays and means to hide rotten 2ieaches under good ones, so as to sell them to blind orphans, but when it comes to grasping great questions, your small brain cannot comprehend them. Your brain may go _up sideways to a great question, and run against it, but It cannot surround it, and grasp it. That's avhero you arc deformed. Now, it is different with me. I can raise bniin_ to sell to you grocery men. _ Listen. This Solomon is credited with being the wi.-est man, and yot history saysho had a thousand Avivcs. J list think of it. You have got one Avife, and pa has got one, and all the neighbors have one, if they have had any kind of luck. Docs not one Avifc make you pay attention ? Wouldn't two wives break you up r AVouldu't three cause you to see stars? Hoav would ten strike you P AVliy, man alive, you do not grasp the magnitude of the statement that Solomon Lad a thousand wives. A thousand Avivcs, standing side by side, Avould reach about four blocks. Marching four deep it Avould take them twenty minutes to puss a given point. The largest summer resort hotel only holds about live hundred people, so Sol Avould have had to hire two hotels if he took his Avivcs out for a day in the country. If you would stop and think once in a Avhile you would know more." The grocery man's eyes had begun to stick out as the bad boy continued, as though the statistics had never boon brought to his attention before, but he was bound to stand by his old friend Solomon, and ho said, "Well, Solomon's wives must have beon different from our Avivcs of tho present day." " Not much," said the boy, as he saw ho was paralyzing the grocery man. " "Women have been about the same ever since Eve. She got mashed on the old original dude, and it stands to reason that Solomon's Avivcs Averc no better than the mother of the human race. Statistics show that ono Avoman out of every ten is red-headed That Avould give Solomon an oven hundred red-headed wives. Just that hundred redheaded avivcs would be enough to make an ordinary man think that there was a land that is fairer than this. Then there Avould bo, out of tho other nine hundred, about three hundred blondes, and the other six hundred would bo brunettes, and maybe he had a few albinos, and bearded women, and fat Avomen, and dwarfs. Now, those thousand women had appetites, desires for dress and style, tho same as all women. Imagine Solomon saying to them, "Girls, lets all go down to the ice cream saloon and have a dish of ice cream." Can you, Avith your brain muddled Avith codfish and now potatoes, realise the scene that Avould follow? Suppose, after Solomon's broom brigade had got seated in tho ico creamery, one of the red-headed Avivcs should catch Solomon Avinking at a strange girl at another table. You may think Solomon did not know enough to Avink, or that he Avas not that kind of a flirt, but he must, have been or he could never have succeeded in marrying a thousand Avives, in a sparsely settled country. No, Sir, it looks to me as though Solomon in all his glory, was an old masher, and from Avhat I have seen of men being bossed around Avith one wife, I don't envy Solomon his thousand. AVliy, just imagine that gang of Avives going and ordering fall bonnets. Solomon would have to bo a king, or a Vandorbilt to stand it. Ma Avcars live dollar stockings, and pa kicks awfully Avhen the bill comes hi. Imagine Solomon putting up for a few thousand pair of stockings. lam glad you -will sit down and reason Avith me in a rational way about some of these Bible stories that take my breath away. The minister stands mc off Avhen I try to talk with him about such things, and tells me to study' the parable of the Prodigal Son, and tho deacons tell me to go and soak my head. There is darn littlo encouragement for a boy to try aud figure out things. How Avould you like to have a thousand red-headed wives come into the store this minute and tell you they Avantcd you to send carriages around to the house at 3 o'clock so they could go for a drive? Or how would you like to have a hired girl como rushing in and toll you to send up six hundred doctors, because six hundred of your Avives had been taken with cholera morbus? Or—" " O don't mention it," said the groceryman, Avith a shudder. "I wouldn't fake Solomon's place, and be tho natural protector of a thousand wives if anybody would give mo the earth. Think of getting up iv a cold winter mornintr and building- a thousand fires. Think of two thousand pair of hands in a fellow's hair ! Boy, you have shoAvn me that Solomon needed a guardian over him. He didn't have sense." "Yes," says the boy, " and think of two thousand feet, each one as a brick of chocolate ice cream. A man Avould Avant a back as big as the fence to a fair ground. But I don't want to harroAv up your feelings. I must go and put some arnica on pa. Ho has got home, and says he has been to a summer resort ou a vacation, and he is all covered with blotches. He says it is mosquito bites, but ma thinks he has been shot full of bird shot by some Avater melon farmer. Ma hasen't got any sympathy for pa because ho didn't take her along, but if she had been there she Avould lu.vo been filled Avith bird shot, too. But you musn't detain mc. Between pa and the baby I havo got all I can attend to. The baby is teething, and ma makes me put my fingers in tho baby's mouth to help it to cut teeth. That is a humiliating position for a boy as big as I am. Say, how many babies do you figure that Soloman had to buy rubber toothing rings for, in all his glory r" And tho boy went out leaving the groceryman reflecting on what a family Solomon must havo had, and lioav he needed to be tho Avisest man to get along Avithout a circus, afternoon and evening.—Peck's Sun.