THE BAD BOYS PA. He is Scratched toy a Black Cat from Genesis to Revelations.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 99, 25 April 1885, Page 5

THE BAD BOYS PA. He is Scratched toy a Black Cat from Genesis to Revelations.

" Hello !" said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in looking cross. " Don't hello to me," said the boy, as he took up tho store cat and went to the sausage machine on the counter and began to turn the handle. " I am no telephone." "Well, you are a transmitter all the same," eaidthe grocery man, laughing at his attempt at a joke, " but drop that cat. What do you want to hurt a cat for, putting her in a sausage-grinder ?" "Oh, I ain't a going to hurt your cat but I wish every cat was dead. Our cat fot me into a nawful scrape last night and was no more to blame than the man in the moon," said the boy, as he sat down on a box, " Everything that goes wrong is laid to me, 'cause 1 used to be a little tuffin my youth. That shows that a boy ought never to be tuff, 'cause it sticks to him as long as he lives." " Give us the cat story," said the grocery man, as he sat down by the boy and tried to raise his drooping spirits with a glass of rotten apple cider. " Oh, I wish I had never been born, or that I had been born twins, or triplets, so there would have been more of us to stand the racket Last night I went to bed at nine o'clock, and left pa and ma up playing youcur. I don't know how long I had been asleep when I heard a rattling down in pa and ma's room, and pa yelled murder, and ma yelled police, and a window was smashed, and I heard a cat squalling, and I opened my window and yelled fire, and then I grabbed my pants and went down stairs to see what the row was, and help put out the lire. I rushed into the room, and there was the offulest sme'l of burnt hair I ever smelled. Ma was up on a chair in her night clothes yelling, and pa was standing looking out of the broken window; the top was off the coal stove, the stove door open, and the coal hod and the coal scattered all around the carpet, and pa was all mussed up, with blood on the front of his night shirt, and a scratch on his leg. When I came in pa grabbed me by the neck and said he would learn me to fill the coalhod with black cats, and I thought pa was crazy, Ma grabbed pa and told him I wad not to blame, and about that time a policeman pounded at the door and wanted to know what the riot was about, and pa told him everything was all right, and the policeman told the driver of the chemical fire extinguisher to go home, and then pa told me what wns the row. Itseemsthatour old black cat didn't have no moro sense than to go to sleep in the coal-hod, on top of the coal, and just before pa got ready to get into bed he went to fill up the stove, and he poured the cat right into the fire. Well, I spose you would have died to see pa As quick as the cat struck the fire she woke up, or may be she woke up going down the reservoir, but anyhow there was a m-e-o-u-w in the stove, and then the cat came right through one of the mica doors and struck pa with her toe nails, and began to walk on him and howl. Pa was so beared he dropped the coal hod, and grabbed the cat by one log and thraw her through the window, and then he began to dance around. I guess at first he didn't know whether it was a forsure cat, or only imagination, cause pa has got to taking a little Tom and Jerry during the holidays, and his nerves are a little unstrung. I expressed my sorrow that the cat should have been scorched, and that made pa mad, 'cause he said we all thought more of the injuries the cat received than we did for his being scratched from Genesis to Revelations, and he said what I ought to have done was to go around the last thing before I went to bed and see that there was no cat in the coal scuttle. Pa is the unreasonablest man I ever saw. Who would ever think of looking for a cat in a coal scuttle ? After pa had given me fits about it, he began to jaw ma, and told her she ought to know better than to veil so." "Say," said the grocery man, stopping the boy, "I want you to tell me the truth. Did you have anything to do with putting that cat in the coal scuttle ? For if you did, that settles it with me." " No, sir, 1 hope to die if I did," said the boy. ' ' Did I ever do anything to cause you to think I was a cold-blooded, heartless villain ? Have I ever harmed a dumb animal ? I have saved lots of dumb animals from harm, but I ha/c never injured one in the least. !s T o, it was just an accident, such as might occur in any family, but I bet you pa never empties a coal scuttle again without analysing it for traces of cat," and the bad boy went out feeling hurt that not only his pa, but his, old. friend th« ; X'ery man, should take him' to be ' who would scorch a cat. — " Peck's