That Bad Boy.

Waikato Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1771, 10 November 1883, Page 6

That Bad Boy.

HOW HIS PA RECEIVED THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE DELEGATES. " I have had the hardest work I ever experiencedjerking soda for the Young Men's [ Christian Association," said the boy,- as he peeled a banana. ' ( ; " What you mean, boy ? " said the grocery ! man. ' ft Don't cast any reflections on such a i noble association. They don't drink, do they?" "Drink! Oh.no! Thoy don't drink anything intoxicating, but when it comes to soda -. they flood themselves. You know there hai * been a national convention of delegates from all the Young Men's Chri&tian Associations of the whole country — about three hundred — here, and our store is right on the street where they passed four times a day, and I never saw such appetites for soda. There hasbeen one continual fizz in our store since Wednesday. 01 course, if a man winks when ~ I ask him what flavor he wants, and says 'never mind,' I know enough to put in brandy. But I wouldn't smuggle it into a man for nothing. This Christian Association convention has caused a coldness ween pa and ma, though." "How's that? Your pa isn't jealous, is he?" and the grocery man came around from behind the counter to get the latest gossip to retail to the hired girls who traded with him. " Jealous nothin'," said the boy, as he took a few raisins out of a box. " You see, the delegates were shuffled out to all the church members to take care of, and they dealt two to ma, and she never told pa anything about it. They came to supper the first night, and pa didn't get home, so when they went to the convention in the evening ma gave them a uight-key, and pa cama_ homo from tho boxing-match about eleveiw o'clock, and ma was asleep. Jusfc as pa got most of his clothes off, he heard somebody fumbling at the front door, and he thought it was burglars. Pa has got nerve enough, when he is on the inside of the house and the burglar 3 are on the outside. He opened 4) window and looked out, and saw two suspi^ cious looking characters trying to pick the lock with a skeleton-key, and he picked up a new water-pitcher that ma had bought the last time when we moved, and dropped it down right between the two delegates. Gosh, if it had hit one of them there would have been the solemnest funeral you ever saw. Just as it struck they got the door opened and came % in the hall, and the wind was blowing pretty hard, and they thought a cyclone had taken the cupola off the house. They were talking about being miraculously saved, and trying to strike a match on their wet pants, when pa went to the head of the stairs and pushed over a wire-stand filled with potted plants, which struck pretty near the delegates, and one of them said the house was coming down sure, and they'd better go into the cellar, and they went down and got be hind the furnace. Pa called me up and wanted me to go down the cellar and tell the burglars we were onto them, and for them to get out, but I wasn't very well, so pa locked his door and went to bed. " I guess it must have been half an hour A before pa's cold feet woke ma up, and than pa told her not to move for her life, 'cause there were two of the savagest-looking burglars that ever was, rummaging over the house. Ma smelled pa's breadth to see if he had got to drinking again, and then she got up and hid her oroide watch in her shoes, and her Oonalaska ear-rings in the Bible, where she ' said no burglar would ever find them, and pa and ma laid awake till daylight, and then mjf'r, said he wasn't afraid, and he and ma vrejK j down cellar. Pa stood on the bottom stair $ and looked around, and one of the delegates ' said, " Mister, is the storm over, and is your ■ family safe?" and ma recognised thB voice, " and said, " Why, it's one of the delegates. ~i What you doing down there ? ' and then ma J explained it, and pa apologised, and the dele-« gate said it was no matter, as they had en-fl joyed themselves real well in the cellar. Ma^ wa3 mortified most to death, but tH^s delegates/, 'J told her it was all right- She" was mad at pft '~m first, but when she saw the broken water-^ pitcher on the front steps, a^ potted^]j. )lants in the hall, she wanted to kill pa, and Yy I guess she would, only for the society of " t p[ delegates. She couldn't help telling pa he.^ was a bald-headed old fool, but pa didn't re- '•>; | taliate. He is too much of a^ gentleman to/ } talk back in company. All he said was that^» a woman who is old enough to have delegates sawed off on her ought to have sense enoaghj""^ to tell her husband, and then they all drifted %? off into conversation about the convention +|p and the boxing-match, and everything was<Jj^ all right on the surface ; but, atfcer breakfaßt,^! when the delegates went to the' convention, I^j noticed pa went right down town^and boughtj^ a new water-pitcher and some" more plants.,j|l Pa and ma didn't speak all the "forenoon,, arid^l I guess they wouldn't up to this time, pnivjy ma's bonnet came home from the milliner^J^ and she had to have money to pay forli^H Then she called pa ' pet,' and that &etJ;led|^H When ma calls pa ' pet,' that is twenty^a^H dollars. ' Dear old darling,' means Alfy^fH lars. — Peck's Sun. "-, ;^>^H flour small studs, instead of one, lire nff^fll 'worn in theshirt front by fashionable blopMafl in Paris. . " >: '^H