THE BAD BOY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3790, 7 September 1883, Page 4

THE BAD BOY.

"Hero, condemn you, you will pay for that cat," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in the store all broke up, the morning after the 4th of July. " What cat •■" said the boy, as ho leaned against the zinc ice box to cool his back, which had been having trouble with a bunch of fire crackers in his pistol pocket. '' Wo haven't ordered any cat from here. Who ordered any cat sent from our house ? We get our sausage at the market," and the boy rubbed some cold cream on his nose and eyebrows, where the skin was off. ' Y'os, that is all right enough," paid the grocery man, " but somebody who knows whore "that cat slept, in the box of sawdust back of the store, filled it full of fire crackers Wednesday forenoon, when I was out to see the procession, and never notified the cat, and touched them off, and the cat went through the roof of the shed, and she hasn't got hair enough to put in tea. Now, you didn't show up all the forenoon, and I went and asked your ma where you was, and she said you had been sitting up four nights straight along with a sick boy in the Third ward, and you was sleeping all the forenoon {the 4th of July. If that is so, that lets you out on the cat, but it don't stand to reason. Own up, now, was you asleep all the forenoon, the 4th, while other boys woro celebrating, or did you scotch my cats'" and the grocery man looked at the boy as though he would believe every word he said, if he U'ns bad. "Well," said the bad boy, as he yawned as though he had been up all night, "I am innocent of sitting up with your cat, but I plead guilty to sitting up with Duffy. _ You pec, I am bad, and it pon't make any difference where I am, and Duffy thumped mo once, when wo were playing marbles, and I said I would get even with him sometime. His ma washes for us, and when she told me that her boy was sick, with fever, arid had nobody to stay with him while she was away, 1 thought it would be a good way to get even with Duffy, when lie was weak, and I went down there to his shanty and gave him his medicine, and read to him all day, and he cried, 'cause he knew I ought to have mauled him, and that night I sat up with him while his ma did the ironing, and Duffy was so glad that I went down every day, and stayed there every night, and fired medicine down him, and let his ma sleep, and Duffy has got mashed on me, and lie says I will be an angel when I die. Last night makes five nights I have sat up with him, and lie has got so lie can eat beef tea and crackers. My girl went back on mo 'cause she said I was sitting up with some other girl. She said that Duffy story was too thin, but Duffy's ma was washing at my girl's house and she proved what I said, and I was all right again. I slept all the forenoon the 4th, and then stayed with Duffy till 4 o'clock, and got a furlough and took my girl to the Soldiers' Home. I had rather set up with Duffy, though." "0, get out. You can't mako mo believe you had rather stay in a sick room and set up with a boy, than to take a girl to the i tli of July," said the grocery man, as he took a brush and wiped the sawdust off some bottles of poppersauce that he was taking out of a box. "You didn't have any trouble with the girl, 'lid you ':" V , . "No,—not with her," said the boy, as he looked into the little round zinc mirror to Bee if his eyebrows were beginning to grow. "But her pa is so unreasonable. I think a man ought to know better than to kick a boy right where he has had a pack of firecrackers to explode in his pocket. You see, when I brought the girl buck home, she was a wreck. Don't you never take a girl to the 4th of July. Take the advice of a boy who lias had experience. Wo hadn't moru than got to the Soldiers' Home grounds before some boys who were playing tag grabbed hold of my girl's crushedstrawberry polonaise, and ripped it oiE. That made her mad, and she wanted me to take offence at it, and I tried to reason with the boys and they both jumped on me, and I saw the only way to get out of it honorably, was , to get out real spry, and I got out. Then Aye sat down under a tree, to eat lunch, and my girl swallowed a pickle the wrong way, and I pounded her on the back, the way ma does mo when I choke, and she yelled, and a policeman grabbed mo and shook me, and asked me what I was hurting that poor girl for, and told me if I did it again lie would arrest mo. Every thing went wrong. After dark somebody fired a Roman candle into my girl's hat, and set it on lire, and I grabbed the hat and stamped on it, and spoiled her hair that her ma bought her. By gosh, I thought her hair was curly, but when tho wig was off, her own hair was as straight as could bo. But she was purty, all tho same. Wo got under another tree, to get away from the smell of burned hair, and a boy set oft* a nigger chaser, and it ran right at my girl's feet, and burned her stockings, and a women put the fire out for her, while I looked for tho boy that fired the nigger chaser, but I didn't want to find him. Slio was pretty near a wreck by that time, though she had all her dress left except the polonaise, and we went and sat under a tree in a quiet place, and I put my arm around her and told her never to mind the accidents, cause it would bo dark when we got home, and just then a spark dropped down through the tree and fell in my pistol pocket, right next to her, where my bunch of fire crackers was, and they began to go off. Well, I never saw such a sight as she was. Her dress was one of these mosquito bar, cheese cloth dresses, and it burned just like punk. I had presence of mind enough to roll her on the grass and put out tho fire, but in doing that I neglected my own conflagration, and when I got her put out, my coat tail and trowsers wore a total loss. My, but she looked like a goose that has been picked, and I looked like a fireman that has fell through a hatchway. My girl wanted to go home, and I took her home, and her pa was setting on the front e<.ops, and ho wouldn't accept her, looking that way. He said ho placed in my possession a whole girl, clothed and in her right mind, and I had brought back a burnt offering. He teaches in our Sunday-school, and knows how to talk pious, but his boots are offul thick. I tried to explain that I was not responsible for the fireworks, and that he could bring in a bill against the government, and I showed him how I was bereaved of a coat tail and some pants, but he wouldn't reason at all, and when his foot hit mo I thought it was tho resurrection, sure, and when I got over the fence, and had picked myself up I never stopped till I got to Duffy's and I set up with him, cause I thought her pa was after me, and I thought ho wouldn't enter a sick room and maul a watcher at the bedside of an invalid. But that settles it with me about celebrating. I don't care if wo tfWwhip the British, after declaring independence, I don't want my pants burnt off. What is tho declaration of independence good for to a girl who loses her polonaise, and has her hair burned off, and a nigger chaser burning her stockings ? No, sir, they may talk about the glorious 4th of July, but will it bring back that blonde wig, orro-tailmy coat? Hereafter I am a rebel, and I will go out in tho woods tho way pa does, and come home with a black eye, got in a rational way." " What, did your pa get a black cyo, too ? I hadn't hoard about that," said the grocery man, giving tho boy a handful of unbaked peanuts to draw him out. "Didn't get to fighting, did he?" "No, pa don't fight. It is wrong, he says, to fight, unless you are sure you can whip the fellow, and pa always got whipped, so ho quit fighting. You see, one of tho deacons in our church lives out on a farm, and all his folks were going away to spend the 4th, and he had to do all tho chores, so he invited pa and ma to come out to tho farm and have a nice quiet time, and they went. Thero is nothing pa likes better than to go out on a farm, and pretend ho knows everything , . When the farmer got pa and ma out there lie set them to work, and nm-shelled peas while pa went to dig potatoes for dinner. I think it was

mean for the deacon to send pa out in the corn field to dig potatoes, and after he had dug up a whole row of corn without finding any potatoes, to set the dog on pa, and tree him in an apple tree near the beehives, and then go and visit with ma and leavepa in the free with the dog barking at him. Pa said he never knew how mean a deacon could be, until he had sat on a limb of that apple tree all the afternoon. About time to do chores the farmer came and found pa, and called the dog off, and pa came down, and then tho farmer played tho meanest trick of all. He said city people didn't know how to milk cows, and pa said ho wished ho had as many dollars as he know how to milk cows. He said his speehulty was milking kicking cows, and the farmer gave pa a tin pail and a milking , stool, and let down the bars, and pointed out to pa " the worst cow on the place." Pa knew his reputation was at "stake, and he went up to tho cow and punched it in the flank and said, "hist, confound you." Well, tho cow wasn't a histing cow, but a histing bull, and pa knew it was a bull as quick as he see it put down its head and beller and pa dropped the pail and stool and started for the bars, and the bull after pa. I don't think it was right in ma to bet two dollars with the farmer that pa would get to the bars before the bull did, though she won the bet. Pa said he knew it was a bull just as soon as tho horns got tangled up iii his coat tail, and when he struck on the other side of the bars, and his nose hit tho ash barrel where they make lye for soap, pa said lie saw more fireworks than wo did at the Soldiers' Home. Pa wouldn't celebrate any more, and he come home, after thanking the fanner for his courtesies, but he wants me to borrow a gun and go with him hunting. We arc going to shoot a bull and a dog, and some bees, may be wo will shoot the farmer, if pa keeps on as mad as he is now. Well, we wont have another 4th of July for a year, and may be by that time my girl's polonaise and hair will grow out, and that bull may become gentle, so pa can milk it. Ta-ta." —Peck's Sun.