"What are you loafing around here for," says the grocery man to the bad
boy one day this week. "It is after nine o'clock, and I should think you
would want to be down to the drug store. How do you know but there may be
somebody dying for a dose of pills?"
"O, darn the drug store. I have got sick of that business, and I have
dissolved with the drugger. I have resigned. The policy of the store did
not meet with my approval, and I have stepped out and am waiting for them
to come and tender me a better position at an increased salary," said the
boy, as he threw a cigar stub into a barrel of prunes and lit a fresh one.
"Resigned, eh?" said the grocery man as he fished out the cigar stub and
charged the boy's father with two pounds of prunes, didn't you and the
boss agree?"
"Not exactly, I gave an old lady some gin when she asked for camphor and
water, and she made a show of herself. I thought I would fool her, but she
knew mighty well what it was, and she drank about half a pint of gin, and
got to tipping over bottles and kegs of paint, and when the drug man came
in with his wife, the old woman threw her arms around his neck and called
him her darling, and when he pushed her away, and told her she was drunk,
she picked up a bottle of citrate of magnesia and pointed it at him, and
the cork came out like a pistol, and he thought he was shot, and his wife
fainted away, and the police came and took the old gin refrigerator away,
and then the drug man told me to face the door, and, when I wasn't looking
he kicked me four times, and I landed in the street, and he said if I ever
came in sight of the store again he would kill me dead. That is the way I
resigned. I tell you, they will send for me again. They never can run that
store without me.
"I guess they will worry along without you," said the grocery
man. "How does your Pa take your being fired out? I should think it would
brake him all up."
"O, I think Pa rather likes it. At first he thought he had a soft snap
with me in the drug store, cause he has got to drinking again, like a
fish, and he has gone back on the church entirely; but after I had put a
few things in his brandy he concluded it was cheaper to buy it, and he is
now patronizing a barrel house down by the river.
"One day I put some Castile soap in a drink of drandy, and Pa leaned over
the back fence more than an hour, with his finger down his throat. The man
that collects the ashes from the alley asked Pa if he had lost anything,
and Pa said he was only 'sugaring off.' I don't know what that is. When Pa
felt better he came in and wanted a little whisky to take the taste out of
his mouth, and I gave him some, with about a teaspoonful of pulverized
alum in it. Well, sir, you'd a dide. Pa's mouth and throat was so puckered
up that he couldn't talk. I don't think that drugman will make anything by
firing me out, because I shall turn all the trade that I control to
another store. Why, sir, sometimes there were eight and nine girls in the
store all at wonct, on account of my being there. They came to have me put
extracts on their handkerchiefs, and to eat gum drops--he will lose all
that trade now. My girl that went back on me for the telegraph messenger
boy, she came with the rest of the girls, but she found that I could be as
'hawty as a dook.' I got even with her, though. I pretended I wasn't mad,
and when she wanted me to put some perfumery on her handkerchief I said
'all right,' and I put on a little geranium and white rose, and then I got
some tincture of assafety, and sprinkled it on her dress and cloak when
she went out. That is about the worst smelling stuff that ever was, and I
was glad when she went out and met the telegraph boy on the corner. They
went off together; but he came back pretty soon, about the
homesickest boy you ever saw, and he told my chum he would never go with
that girl again because she smelled like spoiled oysters or sewer gas. Her
folks noticed it, and made her go and wash her feet and soak herself, and
her brother told my chum it didn't do any good, she smelled just like a
glue factory, and my chum--the darn fool--told her brother that it was me
who perfumed her, and he hit me in the eye with a frozen fish, down by the
fish store, and that's what made my eye black; but I know how to cure a
black eye. I have not been in a drug store eight days, and not know how to
cure a black eye; and I guess I learned that girl not to go back on a boy
'cause he smelled like a goat.
"Well, what was it about your leaving the wrong medicine at houses? The
policeman in this ward told me you come pretty near killing several people
by leaving the wrong medicine."
"The way of it was this. There was about a dozen different kinds of
medicine to leave at different places, and I was in a hurry to go to the
roller skating rink, so I got my chum to help me, and we just took the
numbers of the houses, and when we rung the bell we would hand out the
first package we come to, and I understand there was a good deal of
complaint. One old maid who ordered powder for her face, her ticket drew
some worm lozengers, and she kicked awfully, and a widow who was going to
be married, she ordered a celluloid comb and brush, and she got a nursing
bottle with a rubber nozzle, and a toothing ring, and she made quite a
fuss; but the woman who was weaning her baby and wanted the nursing
bottle, she got the comb and brush and some blue pills, and she never made
any fuss at all. It makes a good deal of difference, I notice, whether a
person gets a better thing than they order or not. But the drug business
is too lively for me. I have got to have a quiet place, and I guess I will
be a cash boy in a store. Pa says he thinks I was cut out for a bunko
steerer, and I may look for that kind of a job. Pa he is a terror since he
got to drinking again. He came home the other day, when the minister was
calling on Ma, and just cause the minister was sitting on the sofa with
Ma, and had his hand on her shoulder, where she said the pain was when the
rheumatiz came on, Pa was mad and told the minister he would kick his
liver clear around on the other side if he caught him there again, and Ma
felt awful about it. After the minister had gone away, Ma told Pa he had
got no feeling at all, and Pa said he had got enough feeling for one
family, and he didn't want no sky-sharp to help him. He said he could cure
all the rheumatiz there was around the house, and then he went down town
and didn't get home till most breakfast time. Ma says she thinks I am
responsible for Pa's falling into bad ways again, and now I am going to
cure him. You watch me, and see if I don't have Pa in the church in less
than a week, praying and singing, and going home with the choir singers,
just as pious as ever. I am going to get a boy that writes a woman's hand
to write to Pa, and--but I must not give it away. But you just watch Pa,
that's all. Well, I must go and saw some wood. It is coming down a good
deal, from a drug clerk to sawing wood, but I will get on top yet, and
don't you forget it."