The Bad Boy and His Dad Ready for Their Travels--The Bad Boy
Labels the Old Man's Suit Case--How the Cowboys Made Him
Dance Once.
The old groceryman was in front of the grocery, bent oyer a box of
rutabagas, turning the decayed sides down to make the possible customer
think all was not as bad as it might be, when a shrill whistle down the
street attracted his attention. He looked in the direction from which it
came, and saw the bad boy coming with a suit case in one hand and a sole
leather hat box in the other, and the old man went in the store to say
a silent prayer, and to lay a hatchet and an ax handle where he could
reach them if the worst came.
“Well, you want to get a good look at me now,” said the bad boy, as he
dropped the valise on the floor, and put the hat box on the counter,
“for it will be months and maybe years, before you see me again.”
“Oh, joy!” said the old groceryman, as he heaved a sigh, and tried to
look sorry. “What is it, reform school, or have the police ordered you
out of town? I have felt it coming for a long time. This is the only
town you could have plied your vocation so long in and not been pulled.
Where are you going with the dude suit case and the hat box?”
“Oh, dad has got a whole mess more diseases, and the doctors had a
conversation over him Sunday, and they say he has got to go away again,
right now, and that a sea voyage will brace him up and empty him out so
medicine over in Europe can get in its work and strengthen him so he can
start back after a while and probably die on the way home, and be buried
at sea. Dad says he will go, for he had rather die at sea than on land,
'cause they don't have to have any trouble about a funeral, 'cause all
they do is to sew a man up in a piece of cloth, tie a sack of coal to
his feet, slide him off a board, and he goes kerplunk down into the salt
water about a mile, and stands there on his feet and makes the whales
and sharks think he is a new kind of fish.”
“Gee! but that is a programme that appeals to me as sort of uncanny,”
said the old man. “Is your dad despondent over the outlook? What new
disease has he got?”
[Illustration: Pasted a tomato can label on the suitcase 31]
“All of 'em,” said the boy, as he took a label off a tomato can and
pasted it on the end of the suit case. “You take an almanac and read
about all the diseases that the medicine advertised in the almanac
cures, and dad has got the whole lot of them, nervous prostration,
rheumatism, liver trouble, stomach busted, lungs congested, diaphragm
turned over, heart disease, bronchitis, corns, bunions, every darn thing
a man can catch without costing him anything. But he is not despondent.
He just thinks it is an evidence of genius, and a certificate of
standing in society and wealth. He argues that the poor people who have
only one disease are not in it with statesmen and scholars. Oh, he is
all right. He thinks if he goes to Europe all knocked out, he will class
with emperors and dukes. Oh, since he had that operation and had his
appendix chopped out, he thinks there is a bond of sympathy between him
and King Edward that will cause him to be invited to be the guest of
royalty. He is just daffy,” and the bad boy took a sapolio label out of
a box and pasted it on the other end of the valise.
“What in thunder and lightning are you pasting those labels on your
valise for?” said the old man, as the boy reached for a Quaker oats
label and a soap advertisement and pasted them on.
“Oh, dad said he wished he had some foreign labels of hotels and things
on his valise, to make fellow travelers believe he had been abroad
before, and I told him I could fix it all right. You see, if I paste
things all over the valise he will think it is all right, 'cause he
is near sighted,” and the boy pasted on a label for 37 varieties of
pickles, and then put on an advertisement for hair restorer on the hat
box.
“Say, here's a fine one, this malted milk label, with a New Jersey cow
on the corner,” said the old man, as he began to take interest in the
boy's talent as an artist. “And here, try one of these green pea can
labels, and the pork and beans legend, and the only soap. Say, if you
and your dad don't create a sensation from the minute you take the train
till you get back, you can take it out of my wages. When are you going?”
“To-morrow night,” said the boy, as he put more labels on the hat box,
and stood off and looked at them with the eye of an artist. “We go to
New York first to stay a few days and see things, and then we take a
steamer and sail away, and the sicker dad is the more time I will have
to fill up on useful nollig.”
“Hennery,” said the old groceryman, as his chin trembled, and a tear
came to his eye. “I want to ask you a favor. At times, when you have
been unusually mean, I have thought I hated you, but when I have said
something ugly to you, and have laid awake all night regretting it, it
has occurred to me that you were about the best friend I had. I think it
makes an old man forget his years, to be chummy with a live boy, full of
ginger, and I do like you, condemn you, and I can't help it. Now I want
you to write me every little while, on your trip, and I will read your
letters to the customers here in the store, who will be lonely until
they can hear that you are dead. The neighbors will come in to read your
letters, and it will bring me custom. Will you write to me, boy, and
pour out your heart to me, and tell me of the different troubles you get
your dad into, for surely you cannot help finding trouble over there if
you go hunting for it. Promise me, boy.”
“You bet your life I will, old pard,” said the bad boy. “I shall have to
have some escape valve to keep from busting. I was going to write to
my chum, but he is in love with a telephone girl, and he don't take any
time for pleasure. I will write you about every dutch and duchess we
meet, every prince and pauper, and everything. You watch my smoke, and
you will think there is a train afire. I hope dad will try and restrain
himself from wanting to fight everybody that belongs to any country but
America. He has bought one one these little silk American flags to wear
in his button hole, and he swears if anybody looks cross-eyed at that
flag he will simply cut his liver out, and toast it on a fork, and eat
it. He makes me tired, and I know there is going to be trouble.”
“Don't you think your dad's mind sort of wanders?” said the old
groceryman, in a whisper, “It wouldn't be strange, after all he has gone
through, in raising you up to your present size, if he was a little off
his base.”
“Well, ma thinks he is bug-house, and the hired girl is willing to go
into court and swear to it, and that experience we had coming home from
the Yellowstone park some time ago, made me think if he was not crazy he
would be before long, You see, we had a hot box on the engine, and had
to stay at a station in the bad lands for an hour, and there were a mess
of cow boys on the platform, and I told dad we might as well have some
amusement while we were there, and that a brake-man told me the cow boys
were great dancers, but you couldn't hire them to dance, but if some man
with a strong personality would demand that they dance, and put his hand
on his pistol pocket they would all jump in and dance for an hour. That
was enough for dad, for he has a microbe that he is a man of strong
personality, and that when he demands that anybody do something they
simply got to do it, so he walked up and down the platform a couple of
times to get his draw poker face on, and I went up to one of the cow
boys and told him that the old duffer used to be a ballet dancer, and he
thought everybody ought to dance when they were told to, and that if the
spell should come on him, and he should order them to dance, it would be
a great favor to me if they would just give him a double shuffle or two,
just to ease his mind.
“Well, pretty soon he came along to where the cowboys were leaning
against the railing, and, looking at them in a haughty manner, he said:
'Dance, you kiotes, dance,' and he put his hand to his pistol pocket.
Well, sir, I never saw so much fun in my life. Four of the cow boys
pulled revolvers and began to shoot regular bullets into the platform
within an inch of dad's feet, and they yelled to him: 'Dance your own
self, you ancient maverick; whoop 'er up!' and by gosh! dad was so
frightened that he began to dance all around the platform, and it was
like a battle, the bullets splintering the boards, and the smoke filling
the air, and the passengers looking out of the windows and laughing,
and the engineer and fireman looking on and yelling, and dad nearly
exhausted from the exertion. I guess if the conductor had not got the
hot box put out and yelled all aboard, dad would have had apoplexy.”
[Illustration: He began to dance all around the platform 037]
“When he let up, the cow boys quit shooting, and he! 'ol aboard the train
and started. I stayed in the smoking car with the train butcher for more
than an hour, 'cause I was afraid if I went in the car where dad was he
would make some remark that would offend my pride, and when I did
go back to the car he just said: 'Somebody fooled you. Those fellows
couldn't dance, and I knew it all the time.' Yes, I guess there is no
doubt dad is crazy sometimes, but let me chaperone him through a few
foreign countries and he will stand without hitching all right. Well,
goodby, now, old man, and try and bear up under it, till you get a
letter from me,” and the bad boy took his labeled valise and hat box and
started.