THE BAD BOY AT THE PICNIC.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3871, 13 December 1883, Page 4

THE BAD BOY AT THE PICNIC.

'' An' sic a boy as Geordie had Wad milk' the very de'il go mad !" —Brass. "Say, you think about everything mean (here is going, don't you," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in to show that his blank eye had been cured. "The minister explained to me yesterday how you caused him and your father to lay and soak in the water about three hours, one hot day last summer, in tho lake, and they both blistered their backs. The minister says the skin has not stopped peeling off his shoulders yet What caused you to play such a mean trick on them F' "O, it was their own fault," said the boy, as he looked with disdain on a watermelon that was out of season, and had no charms in October. "Yousee, tho night the sociable wasatour house, the minister and some of tho deacons were up in my room, which they used that, night for a smoking room, and while they were smoking they were telling stories about what fun they had when they were boys, and I remember one story the minister told about finding some girls in swimming once, and stealing their clothes, and making them wait till night, and then a girl had to fix herself up with newspapers and go home and send a wagon after the rest of the girls. The minister thought it was awful cunning, so when the church had tho picnic last summer on the bank of the lake, I remembered about it. Beats all, don't it how a boy will remember anything like that \ Well, after dinner I saw pa whisper to the minister, and they took a couple of towels and a piece of soap, and started off up the lake about half a mile, and I know they were going in swimming. Well, it don't tako me very long to catch them. I got an overdress that one of tho girls had buen wearing to wash dishes, and a shawl, and stole a hat belonging to tho soprano of the choir, and a red parasol that a girl left under a tree, and I went down in the woods and put on the clothes, over my pants and thing's, and when pa, and the minister had got in the water and were swimming around, I put up the parasol and tripped along the shore like a girl picking flowers, and when I came to the stump where they put their clothes I didn't look toward the water, but acted tired, and sat down on the stump and began to fan myself. You'd a dido to see pa look. He crawled up on the beach, in the shallow water, and said, ' Elder, do you see that ?' The elder looked, with hisself all under water except his head, and said, '' Merciful goodness, squire, we are in for it. That interesting female is going to sit there and read a novel through before she goes away." I through the fan and could see all they said, while 1 pretended to read a novel. They swam around, and made a noise, but T was deaf, and I thought it wasn't any worse for me to sit on tho stump than it was for the minister, when he was a good little boy, to steal the clothes of the girls. I stayed until I got tired, and didn't hear them when they hullercd to me to go away, and after a while they got water soaked, and had to do something, so the minister broke off a piece of a tree and dressed himself in it, and came up towards me, and said, ' Madame, excuse me for troubling you, but if you will go away while I get my clothes, I will take it as a favor.' I pretended to be insulted, and got up and walked off very indignant, and wont back to the picnic and returned the clothes, and pretty soon they came up, looking as red as if they had been drinking, and tho picnic was ready to go home. Somebody told pa it was me, but I don't know who it was that give it away. Anyway, he chased me clear out of the woods with a piece of sapling. That was the time I told you I was too tired to ride, and walked homo from tho picnic. Pa has forgiven me, but I don't believe the minister ever will."