HIS PA AN ORANGEMAN.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1280, 4 June 1883, Page 2

HIS PA AN ORANGEMAN.

1 Say, will you do me a favor ?' asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as. he sat down on the soap box aud put his wet boots on the stove.

"' Well, y-e-s,' said the grocery man, hesitatingly, with a feeling that he was liable to ibe sold. » If you will help, me to catch the villain who hangs up those disreputable signs in front of my store, I will. What is it V

• ' I want you to lick this stamp and put it on this letter. It is to my girl, and I want to fool her,' and the boy handed over the. letter and stamp, and; while the grocery man was licking it and- putting it on, the boy filled his pockets with dried peaches out of a box.

' There, that's a small job,' said the grocery man, as he pressed the stamp on. the letter with his thumb and handed it back. < But how are you going to fool her V ' '•'. ■•;■' ' ''That's just business,' said the boy, as he ; held the letter to his nose and smelled the. stamp. . .t Thatwill make her tried. You seej-'qjiery'.time she gets a letter from me she. kisses the stamp, because she. thinks I licked 'it. When she kisses this stamp and gets the fumes of plug, tobacco, and stale beer, alnd'linfburg cbeesei and mouldy potatoes, -it .will. \, knock her down, aud then, slie will ask me what ailed the stamp, .and J. will tell her I got you to lipk it,! and then it will make her sick, and her parents will stop trading here. 01 it will paralyze her. Do you know, ypu smell like a glue factory. Gosh, 1 1 cau smell ' you all oyer the store.' Don't you smell anything that smells spoiled?'

'The grocery man thought he did, smell something that was rancid, and finally' kicked _boy's .boot off; the stove and said : 'It's 'your boot "^burning. Gracious, open, the . door. It smells like a. hot-box oh a. caboose. Whew ' And there' comes a cohple of my best customers.' The ladies- came in and held their handkerchiefs to. their noses, and while they were trading tiie boy said, as though , continuing the conversation : f Yes pa says that last-oleomargarine I got herej is nothing hut axle-grease. Why don't you' put your axle-grease in a different kind of» package i . The only way ,; you v caii: tell, axle.-greese from oleomargarine is in spreading it on pancakes. Pa says axle-grease will spread, but your alleged butter just' rolls right up and acts like lipsalve, or ointment, and is only fit to use on a sorje— ' ■■ r At this point the ladies went out of the! Store in disgust, without buying anything, and the grocery man took a dried Godtish by the tail and .went up *. to the boy and took him by the neck,; ' Uolbhist you I have a notion to kill you. You have driven away more custom from this store than your neck is worth. Now, you git,' and he struck the boy across the back with the codfish.

' That's just the way with you all,' says th,e boy, as he put his sleeve up to His eyes and pretended to cry: 4 when a fellow is up in the world, there is nothing too good for him, but whom he gets down, you maul him with a codfish. Since pa drove me out of the house, and told me to go shirk for my living, I haven't had a kind word from anybody,. My chum's clog won't even follow me, and

a dog goes back on him there is no* thing left for him to do but loaf around a : grocery,, or sit on a jury, and I a „ too young to sit on a jury, though I know more than some of the beats 'that lay. around the court to get on a jury. I am going to drown myself, ■ and my death will be laid to you. . Thoy will find evidence of codfish on my 'clothes, and you will be arrested for driving me to a suicide's grave. Goodbye, I forgive you, and the boy started for the door.

•Hold on here,' says the grocery' man, feeling that he had been too harsh, ' Come back here and have some maple sugar. What did your pa drive you away from home for ?'

' 0, it was on account of St. Patrick's Day,' said the bad boy as he bit oil half a pound of maple sugar, and dried his tears. ' You see, pa never sees ma buy a new silk handkerchief, but he wants it. ' Tother day ma got one of those orange-colored handkerchiefs. , and pa immediately had a spre- ; Jlir#a.t . 1 'hint 6_ taking everything ftibfe that ma : got, so when he went down town 'With the orange "handkerchief on his neck, I told some of the St Patrick boys in J the Third ward, who had green ribbons on, that the old duffer, that wasputting on style was an orange man, and he said he could whip any '$&_, Patrick's Day man in town. The fellers laid for pa, and when he caih^t along one of them threw a barr-1 ai." ' paj and another pulled the fellow* - handkerchief off his neck, and they" all yelled ' hang him,' and one grabbed - a rope that was on the sidewall where they were moving a building, and pa got up and dusted. You'd a died to see pa run. He met a police-man and • said more'n a hundred men had tried to murder him, and they had mauled him and stolen his yellow handkerchief. The policeman told pa his lifo was not safe, .and he better go home and lock himself in, and he did, and I was . . telling ma about how I got the boys to scare pa, and he heard it, and he told me that settled it He Baid I had caused him to run more race* than any champion pedestrian, and had made his. life unbearable, and now I must do it. alone. Now I want you to send a couple of pounds of crackers over to the house, and have your boy tell the hired girl that I have gone down to the river to drown myself, and she will tell ma, and ma will teli*pA, . t, .. and pretty soon you will see a baid*.; l pussy man whooping it up towards - ik** ~ river with a rope,.. They, . npay ; thi^?£ • at. tiroes that, I aiavavlitfle^ongh'^^ but when it comes to parting forever, they weaken.' ...'•. 'Well, the teacher at school says you are" a hardened infidel,', sa\d tb.9. grocery man, as he charged the crackers to the boy's pa. 'He says he had to turn you out to keep you from ruining the morals of the other scholars. How was that ?'

'It was about speaking, a piece, When I asked him what I should speak, he told me to learn some speech of some great man, some lawyer o$ statesman,* so I learned one of" Bob Ingersoll's speeches. "Well, you'd - a died to see the teacher and the schQpl committee, when I started in on Bob Ingersoll's lecture, the one that was in the papers when Bob was here. .._<».i see I thought ..if a. newspaper that ail pious folks takes in their families, could, publish Ingersoll's speech, it wouldni£ do any hurt for a poor, little, boy, w.he ain't knee high to a giraffe, to spsak it in school, but they maple, me dry ijp. The teacher is a republikin, and wlrtft Ingersoll was speaking- around here 011 politix, the time ofthe election, the teacher said Bob was the smartest man this country ever produced. I heard him say that in a corcus, when he went buuxniiug around the ward settin' 'em up nights, spectiug to be superintendent of schools. Ho said Bob Ingersolhjust took the cake, anc! I think it was darn mean in him to __<> back on -Bob and me too, just oausc .there was no 'lection. The school committee made the teacher stop me . and they asked me, if I didn't kne ■••=.'■ ,any other piece, and I told them I knew one of.Beecher's, and they let n> go ahead, but it was one of Beecher' ,-i new ones, where he said he didn l believe in any hell, aud afore I g.^ warmed up they said they'd enough <>£ that, and I had to wind up ©n * Mai v had a Little Lam.' None of then didn't kick on Mary's Lam, and I weti through it, and they let me go horn< • That's about the safest thing a bo\ can speak in school, now days, eithe; ' Mary had a Little Lam,' or « Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.' That's about up to the average intellect of the com-' mittee. Butifajaoy tries to^ branch; out like a statesman, they choke him off. Well-, lam going down to the river, and! will leave my coat and hat by the; wood yard, and get behind tlie wood> and you steer pa down thero and you will see some tall weepin.; c-■,-,...-----them clothes, aud maybejpa wil: ju. n

in after me, and then I will come out from behirldthe: wood an_ throw in a board for - ' him to swim ashore on . _ood by& Give my pocket comb to my chum,' and the boy wentout and hung op a sign in-front - of the grocery, as follows 'Pop corn that the cat has slept in, cheap for pop corn balls for sociables. 1