The Bad Boy Calls on the Old Groceryman and Gets Acquainted with His New
Dog--Off Again to See America.
The old groceryman was sitting in the old grocery one fine spring
morning looking over his accounts, as they were written on a quire of
brown wrapping paper with a blunt lead pencil, and wondering where he
could go to collect money to pay a note that was due at the bank at noon
on that day. He was looking ten years older than he did the year before
when the Bad Boy had played his last trick on the old man, and gone
abroad to chaperone his sick father, in a search for health and
adventure. The old man had missed the boy around the grocery, and with
no one to keep his blood circulating, and his temperature occasionally
soaring above the normal, he had failed in health, and had read with
mixed feelings of joy, fear and resentment that the Bad Boy and his dad
had arrived home, and he knew it could not be long before the boy would
blow in, and he was trying to decide whether to meet the boy cheerfully
and with a spirit of resignation, or to meet him with a club, whether to
give him the glad hand, or form himself into a column of fours to drive
him out when he came.
He had accumulated a terrier dog since the boy went away, to be company
for the old singed cat, to hunt rats in the cellar, and to watch the
store nights. The dog was barking down cellar, and the old man went down
the rickety stairs to see what the trouble was, and while he was down
there helping the dog to tree a rat under a sack of potatoes, the Bad
Boy slipped into the store, and finding the old man absent, he crawled
under the counter, curled up on a cracker box, and began to snore as
the old man came up the stairs, followed by the dog, with a rat in
his mouth. The old man heard the snore, and wondered if he had been
entertaining a tramp unawares, when the dog dropped the rat and rushing
behind the counter began to growl, and grabbed the Bad boy by the seat
of his trousers and gave him a good shaking, while the boy set up a yell
that caused the plaster to fall, and the old man to almost faint with
excitement, and he went to the door to call a policeman, when the boy
kicked the dog off, and raised up from behind the counter, causing the
old cat to raise her back and spit cotton, and as the old man saw the
Bad Boy he leaned against the show case and a large smile came over his
face, and he said: “Gee whiz, where did you get on?”
“The porter was not in, so I turned in in the first lower berth I came
to,” said the Bad Boy, as he jumped over the counter and grabbed the old
man by the arm and shook his hand until it ached. “Introduce me to your
friend, the dog, who seems to have acquired an appetite for pants,”
and the Bad Boy got behind the old man and kicked at the dog, who was
barking as though he had a cat on the fence.
[Illustration: “Dog Does Kinder Act as Though he Had Something on
His Mind.”]
“Get out, Tiger,” said the old man, as he pushed the dog away. “You
have got to get used to this young heathen,” and he hugged the
bright-looking, well-dressed boy as though he was proud of him.
“What are good fat rats selling for now?” asked the boy, as his eye fell
on the rat the terrier had brought out of the cellar. “I did not know
you had added a meat market to your grocery. Now, in Paris the rat
business is a very important industry, but I didn't know the people ate
them here. What do you retail them at?”
“O, get out, I don't sell rats,” said the old man, indignantly. “I got
this dog for company, in your place, and he has proved himself more
useful than any boy I ever saw. Say, come and sit down by the stove, and
tell me all about your trip, as your letters to me were not very full of
information. How is your father's health?”
“Dad is the healthiest man in America,” said the boy, as he handed the
old man a Turkish cigarette, with a piece of cheese under the tobacco
about half an inch from where the old man lighted it with a match. “Dad
is all right, except his back. He slept four nights with a cork life
preserver strapped to, his back, coming over, and he has got curvature
of the spine, but the doctor has strapped a board to dad's back, and
says when his back warps back to fit the board he will be sound again.”
“Say, this is a genuine Turkish cigarette, isn't it,” said the old man,
as he puffed away at it, and blew the smoke through his nose.
“I have always wanted to smoke a genuine, imported cigarette. Got a
flavor something like a Welsh rabbit, ain't it?” and the old man looked
at the cigarette where the frying cheese was soaking through the paper.
“Gee, but I can't go that,” and he threw it away and looked sea sick.
“Turks always take cheese in their cigarettes,” said the Bad Boy. “They
get a smoke and food at the same time. But if you feel sick you can go
out in the back yard and I will wait for you.”
“No, I will be all right,” said the old man, as he got up to wait on a
customer. “Here, try a glass of my cider,” and he handed the boy a dirty
glass half filled with cider which the boy drank, and then looked queer
at the old man.
“Tastes like it smells going through the oil belt in Indiana,” said the
boy. “What's in it?”
“Kerosene,” said the old man. “The Turks like kerosene in their cider.
They get drink and light, if they touch a match to their breath. Say,
that makes us even. Now, tell me, what country did you dad get robbed
the most in while you were abroad?”
“Well, it was about a stand off,” said the boy, as he made a slip noose
on the end of a piece of twine, and was trying to make a hitch over the
bob tail of the groceryman's dog, with an idea of fastening a tomato can
to the string a little later, and turning the dog loose. “Do you know,”
said he to the old man, “that I think it is wrong to cut off a dog's
tail, cause when you tie a tin can to it you feel as though you were
taking advantage of a cripple.
“Well, all the countries we visited robbed dad of all the money he
had, one way of another, sooner or later; even our own country, when
we arrived in New York, took his roll for duty on some little things
he smuggled, but I think the combination of robbers at Carlsbad stuck
together and got the goods off dad in the most systematic manner. Some
way they got news when we arrived, of the exact amount of money dad had
got out of the bank, and before we had breakfast the fakers had divided
it up among themselves, and each one knew just what was going to be his
share, and it was just like getting a check from home for them. If we
were going there again we would give the money to some particular faker
to divide with the rest, and then take a few swallows of their rotten
egg water, and get out.
“Say, did you ever eat a piece of custard pie made out of stale eggs?
Well, that is just about the same as the Carlsbad water, only the
water is not baked with a raw crust on the bottom. But the doctor dad
consulted was the peach. Dad asked him how much of the water he ought
to drink, and the doctor held a counsel with himself, and said dad might
drink all he could hold, and when dad asked him how much his charges
were he said, 'Oh, wait till you are cured.' So dad thought he was not
going to charge for his advice, but after we had drank the water for ten
days, and dad was so weak he couldn't brush the flies off his bald spot,
we decided to go to rest cure, and when we had our tickets bought the
doctor attached our baggage, and had a bill against dad for four hundred
and sixty dollars for consultations, operations, advice, board and
borrowed money, and he had a dozen witnesses to prove every item. Dad
paid it, but we are going there once more with a keg of dynamite for
that doctor. But dad thinks he got the worth of his money.
“You remember before he went away he thought the doctors who operated
on him for that 'pendecitus' left a monkey wrench in him when they sewed
him up. Well, after he began to drink that water he found iron rust on
the towels when he took a bath, and he believes the monkey wrench was
sweat out of him. Say, does your dog like candy?”
“O, yes, he eats a little,” said the grocery-man, and the boy tossed a
piece of candy such as he gave the King of Spain, with cayenne pepper in
it, to the dog, which swallowed it whole, and the old man said, “Now,
I suppose your father is cured, you will stay at home for awhile,
and settle down to decent citizenship, and take an active part in the
affairs of your city and state? Gee, but what is the matter with the
dog?” added the old man, as the dog jumped up on all fours, looked
cross-eyed, and tried to dig a hole in his stomach with his hind leg.
“O, no, we shall never stay home much more,” said the Bad Boy, getting
up on a barrel and pulling his feet up to get away from the dog, which
was beginning to act queer. “You see, dad got cured all right, of a few
diseases that were carrying him off, but he has taken the 'jumps,' a
disease that is incurable. When a man has the 'jumps' he can't stay long
in one place, but his life after taking the disease is one continual
round of packing up and unpacking. His literature is time cards and
railroad guides, and his meals are largely taken at railroad eating
houses, sitting on a stool, and his sleep is uncertain cat naps. Say,
that dog acts as though the mouthful he took out of my pants under the
counter didn't agree with him,” added the boy, as the dog rolled over
and tried to stand on his head.
“Dog does act kinder like he had something on his mind,” said the old
man, as he got out of the dog's way, so he could do his acrobatic stunt.
“Where is your dad going next trip? Seems as though he would want to
stay home long enough to change his shirt.”
“Don't have to change your shirt when you travel,” said the boy, as he
slipped an imitation snake into the side pocket of the old groceryman's
sack coat. “We are going to see all the world, now that we have started
in the traveling industry, but our next move will be chasing ourselves
around our own native land. Say, if you have never been vaccinated
against mad dog, you better take something right now, for that dog is
mad, and in about two minutes he is going to begin to snap at people,
and there is no death so terrible as death from a mad dog bite. Gee, but
I wouldn't be in your for a million dollars.” And the boy stood upon the
barrel, and was beginning to yell “mad dog,” when the old man asked what
he could take to make him immune from the bite of a mad dog.
“Eat a bottle of horseradish,” said the boy, as he reached over to the
shelves and got a bottle, and pulled the cork. “Eminent scientists agree
that horseradish is the only thing that will get the system in shape to
withstand and throw off the mad dog virus,” and he handed the old man
the bottle and he began to eat it, and cry, and choke, and the boy got
down from the barrel and let the dog out doors, and he made a bee line
for the lake.
“He's a water dog all right,” said the boy, and as a servant girl came
in to buy some soap, and saw the old man eating raw horseradish and
choking and looking apoplectic, she asked what was the matter with the
old man, and a boy said a mad dog just escaped from the store, and that
the old man had shown signs of madness ever since; the girl gave a yell
and rushed out into the world without her soap. “Let this be a lesson
to you to be kind to dumb animals,” said the boy to the old man, as he
finished the bottle of horseradish, and put his hands on his stomach.
“Write to me, won't you?” said the old groceryman, “and may the fiercest
grizzly bear get you, and eat you, condemn you,” and the old man opened
the door and pointed to the street.
“Sure,” said the Bad Boy. “I will write you but beware of the dog.
Good-bye. You are a good thing. Push yourself along,” and the Bad Boy
went out to pack up for another journey.