THE BAD BOY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1442, 28 July 1883, Page 4

THE BAD BOY.

' Say I thought you were going' to lead a different life,' Said the giocery man to the bad boy as the youth cifoie in with a pocket full of 1 angle wornls, und wanted to borrow a baking powder can to put them into, while he, went fishing, and ho held a long angle worm up by the tail and leg it wiggle' so it frightened a girl that had come in after ten cents worth of yeast, so she; dropped her pitcher and went out of the grocery as though sho was chased by an anaconda.

'l,am going to lead'a different life but a boy can't change his whole jourse of life in a minute, can ho? Grown persons have to go on probation for six months, before they can lead a different life, and ha]f the time they lose their cud before' the six months expire, and have to commence again, When it is so altired hard for a man that is endowd with sense to break off being bad, you shouldn't expect too much from a boy. But lam doing as well as could be expected,. I ain't Jhalf. as had as I was. Gosh, why don't you burn a rag, That yeast that the girl spilled on the lloor smells like it was sick. I should think that bread that was raised with that yeast would smell like the cooking butter you sell, to hired girls,"

" Well, never you mind .the cooking butter, I know my business. Jf people want to use poor butter when they have company, and then blow up their grocer before folks, I can stand it if they can, But what is this I hear about your father lighting a duel with a minister in your back yard, and wounding him in the leg, and then trying to drown himself in the cistern t line of your new neighbours wbb in here this morning and told me there was murder in the air at your house last night, and they were going to havo the police pull your place as a disorderly house, I think you wore at the bottom of the whole business.

" 0, it's all a darned lie, and those neighbors will find they better keep still about us, or we will lie about them a little. You see, since pa got diat blacking on his f'acehedm't go out any, and to make it pleasant for him ma invited in a few friends to spend the evening. Ma has got up around and the baby is a daisy, only it smells like a goat, on account of drinking the goats milk. Ma invited the minister, among the rest, and after supper the men went up into pa's library to talk. I), you think lam bad, don't you, but of the nine men at our house last night, lam an angel compared, with what they were when they were boys, I got in the bath-room to untangle my fish line, and it is next to pa's room, and I could hear everything they said, but I went away 'cause I thought the conversation would hurt my morals. Thoy would all steal, when they were boys, but darned if I ever stole. Pa has stole over a hundred wagon loads of water-melons, one deacon used to rob ot'chads, another one shot tame dunks belonging to a farmer, and another tipped over grindstones in front of the village store at night, and broke them, and run, another used to steal eggs, and go out in the woods to boil them, and the minister was the worst of the lot cause he took a seine, with some other boys, and went to a stream where a neighbor was raisin" brook trout, and cleaned the stream out, and to ward off suspicion, he went to the man next clay and paid him a dollar to let him fish in the stream, and then kicked because thero were no trout, and the owner found the;trout were stolen, and laid it to some Dutch boys. I wondered when those men were telling their experience, if they ever thought of it now when they were preaching and praying, and taking up collection. I should think they wouldn't say a boy was going to hell right off 'cause he was a little wild now days, when he has such an example Well, lately, somebody has been burgling our chicken coop, and pa loaded an old musket with rock salt, and said ho would fill the fellow full of salt if he caught him, and while they were talking up stairs ma heard a rooster squawk, and she went to;the stairway and told pa there was somebody iu the hen house. Pa jumped up and told the visitors to follow him aud they would see a man running down the alley, full of fait, and he rushed out with the gun, and the crowd fol-, lowed him. Pa is shorter than, the rest, and lie passed under the first \vire of clothes in the yard all right, and was' going for the henhouse' on-" a jump, when his neck caught the second wire clothes-line, just as the minister and two of the deacons caught their necks under the other wire, You know how a wire, hitting a man on the neck, will set him back, head over appetite. Well, sir, I was looking out the back window, and I wouldn't be positive, but I think they all turned double back summersaults, and struck on his ears. Anyway, pa did, and the gun must have been cooked, or it struck the hammer on a stone, for it went off, and it wae pointed toward the house, and three of the visitors got salted. The minister was hit tho worst, one piece of salt taking him in the hind leg, and the other in the back, and he yelled as though it was dynamite. I suppose when you shoot a man with salt, it smarts, like when you get corned beef brine on your chapped bauds. They all yelled, and pa seemed to have been knocked silly, some way, for he pranced around and seemed to think he had killed them'. He swore at the wire clothes line, and | then I missed pa and heard a splash like when you throw a cat in the river, and then 1 thought of the cistern, and I went down and we took pa by tho; collar and pulled him out. 0, he was awful damp, No sir, it was no duel at all, but a naxident, and I didn't have. 1 anything to do with it, The gun wasn't loaded to kill, and the salt only went through the skin, but those men did yell. May be it was my chutii' that stirred up the chickens, but I don't know. Ho has not commenced to'lead a different life yet, and he think'lit: would make our folks sick if nothing