THE BAD BOY A THOROUGHBRED--THE BAD BOY WITH A BLACK EYE--A
POOR FRIENDLESS GIRL EXCITES HIS PITY--PROVES HIMSELF A
GALLANT KNIGHT--THE OLD MAN IS CHARMED AT HIS SON'S COURAGE--
THE GROCERY MAN MORALIZES--FIFTEEN CHRISTS IN MILWAUKEE--
THE TABLES TURNED--THE OLD MAN WEARS THE BOY'S OLD CLOTHES.
“Ah, ha, you have got your deserts at last,” said the grocery man to the
bad boy, as he came in with one eye black, and his nose pealed on on
one side, and sat down on a board across the the coal scuttle, and began
whistling as unconcerned as possible. “What's the matter with your eye?”
“Boy tried to gouge it out without my consent,” and the bad boy took a
dried herring out of the box and began peeling it. “He is in bed now,
and his ma is poulticing him, and she says he will be out about the last
of next week.
“O, you are going to be a prize fighter, ain't you,” said the grocery
man, disgusted. “When a boy leaves a job where he is working, and goes
to loafing around, he becomes a fighter the first thing. What your Pa
ought to do is bind you out with a farmer, where you would have to work
all the time. I wish you would go away from here, because you look
like one of these fellows that comes up before the police judge Monday
morning, and gets thirty days in the house of correction. Why don't
you go out and loaf around a slaughter house, where you would look
appropriate?” and the grocery man took a hair-brush and brushed some
sugar and tea, that was on the counter, into the sugar barrel.
“Well, if you have got through with your sermon, I will toot a little
on my horn,” and the boy threw the remains of the herring over behind
a barrel of potatoes, and wiped his hands on a coffee sack. “If you had
this black eye, and got it the way I did, it would be a more priceless
gem in the crown of glory you hope to wear, than any gem you can get
by putting quarters in the collection plate, with the holes filled with
lead, as you did last Sunday, when I was watching you. O, didn't you
look pious when you picked that filled quarter out, and held your thumb
over the place where the lead was. The way of the black eye was this. I
got a job tending a soda water fountain, and last night, just before we
closed, there was two or three young loafers in the place, and a girl
came in for a glass of soda Five years ago she was one of the brightest
scholars in the ward school, when I was in the intermediate department.
She was just as handsome as a peach, and everybody liked her. At recess
she used to take my part when the boys knocked me around and she lived
near us. She had a heart as big as that cheese box, and I guess that's
what's the matter. Anyway, she left school, and then it was said she was
going to get married to a fellow who is now in the dude business, but he
went back on her and after awhile her ma turned her out doors, and for
a year or two she was jerking beer in a concert saloon, until the mayor
stopped concerts. She tried hard to get sewing to do, but they wouldn't
have her, I guess 'cause she cried so much when she was sewing, and the
tears wet the cloth she was sewing on. Once I asked Pa why Ma didn't
give her some sewing to do, and he said for me to dry up and never speak
to her if I met her on the street. It seemed tuff to pass her on the
street, when she had tears in her eyes as big as marbles, and not speak
to her when I know her so well, and she had been so kind to me at school
just 'cause the dude wouldn't marry her, but I wanted to obey Pa, so I
used to walk around a block when I see her coming, 'cause I didn't want
to hurt her feelings. Well, last night she came in the store, looking
pretty shabby, and wanted a glass of soda, and I gave it to her, and O,
how her hand trembled when she raised the glass to her lips, and how
wet her eyes were, and how pale her face was. I choked up so I couldn't
speak when she handed me the nickel and when she looked up at me and
smiled just like she used to, and said I was getting to be almost a
man since we went to school at the old school house, and put her
handkerchief to her eyes, by gosh, my eyes got so full I couldn't tell
whether is was a nickel or a lozenger she gave me. Just then one of
those loafers began to laugh at her, and call her names, and say the
police ought to take her up for stray, and he made fun of her until she
cried some more, and I got hot and went around to where he was and told
him if he said another unkind word to that girl I would maul him. He
laughed and asked if she was my sister, and I told him that a poor
friendless girl, who was sick and in distress, and who was insulted,
ought to be every boy's sister, for a minute, and any boy who had a
spark of manhood should protect her, and then he laughed and said I
ought to be one of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and he took hold of
her faded shawl and pulled the weak girl against the showcase, and said
something mean to her, and she looked as though she wanted to die, and
I mashed that boy one right on the nose. Well, the air seemed to be full
of me for a minute, 'cause he was bigger than me, and he got me down and
got his thumb in my eye. I guess he was going to take my eye out, but I
turned him over and got on top and I mauled him until he begged, but I
wouldn't let him up till he asked the girl's pardon, and swore he would
whip any boy that insulted her, and then I let him up, and the girl
thanked me; but I told her I couldn't speak to her 'cause she was tuff,
and Pa didn't wan't me to speak to anybody who was tuff; but if anybody
ever insulted her so she had to cry, that I would whip him if I had to
take a club. I told Pa about it, and I thought he would be mad at me for
taking the part of a girl that was tuff, but, by gosh, Pa hugged me, and
the tears came in his eyes, and he said I had got good blood in me, and
I did just right; and if I would show him the father of the boy that I
whipped, Pa said said he could whip the old man, and Ma said for me to
find the poor girl and send her up to the house, and she would give her
a job making pillow cases and night shirts. Don't it seem darn queer to
you that everybody goes back on a poor girl 'cause she makes a mistake,
and the blasted whelp that is to blame gets a chromo. It makes me tired
to think of it;” and the boy got up and shook himself, and looked in
the cracked mirror hanging upon a post, to see how his eye was getting
along.
“Say, young fellow, you are a thoroughbred,” said the grocery man, as he
sprinkled some water on the asparagus and lettuce, “and you can come in
here and get all the herring you want, and never mind the black eye. I
wish I had it myself. Yes, it does seem tough to see people never
allow a girl to reform. Now, in Bible times, the Savior forgave Mary or
somebody, I forget now what her name was, and she was a better girl than
ever. What we need is more of the spirit of Christ, and the world would
be better.”
“What we want is about ten thousand Christs. We ought to have ten or
fifteen right here in Milwaukee, and they would find plenty of business,
too. But this climate seems to be too rough. Say, did I tell you about
Pa and Ma having trouble?”
“No, what's the row?”
“Well, you see Ma wants to economize all she can, and Pa has been
getting thinner since he quit drinking and reformed, and I have kept on
growing until I am bigger than he is. Funny, ain't it, that a boy should
be bigger than his Pa? Pa wanted a new suit of clothes, and Ma said she
would fix him, and so she took one of my old suits and made it over for
Pa; and he wore them a week before he knew it was on old suit made over,
but one day he found a handful of dried up angle worms in the pistol
pocket that I had forgot when I was fishing, and Pa laid the angle worms
to Ma, and Ma had to explain that she made over one of my old suits for
Pa. He was mad and took them off and threw them out the back window, and
swore he would never humiliate himself by wearing his son's old clothes.
Ma tried to reason with him, but he was awfully worked up, and said he
was no old charity hospital, and he stormed around to find his old suit
of clothes, but Ma had sold them to a plaster of Paris image peddlar,
and Pa hadn't anything to wear, and he wanted Ma to go out in the alley
and pick up the suit he threw out the window; but a rag man had picked
them up and was going away, and Pa, he grabbed a linen duster and put it
on and went out after the rag picker, and he run, and Pa after him;
and the rag man told a policeman there was an escaped lunatic from the
asylum, and he was chasing people all over the city, and the policeman
took Pa by the linen ulster, and pulled it off, and he was a sight when
they took him to the police station. Ma and me had to go down and bail
him out, and the police lent us a tarpaulin to put over Pa, and we got
him home, and he is wearing his summer pants while the tailor makes him
a new suit of clothes. I think Pa is too excitable, and too particular.
I never kicked on wearing Pa's old clothes, and I think he ought to wear
mine now. Well, I must go down to the sweetened wind factory, and jerk
soda,” and the boy went out and hung up a sign in front of the store:
SPINAGE FOB GREENS,
THAT THE CAT HAS MADE
A NEST IN OVER SUNDAY.