The Hancock Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Ohio) 1857-1870, 1867-07-19
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TheStOry of the Bad Little Boy
who Didn't Come to Grief.
BY MARK TWAIN.

DOre utT UOy, duu the duAiSty SUI
felt that the world would be harsh
and cold TO him when she was gone
Most bad boys in the Sunday School
books are named James, and have
sick mothers who teach them to say,
Z" Now lay me down." &c, and sing
them to sleep with sweet plaintive
voices, and kiss them good night.
and kneel down by the bedside and
| weep. But it was different with this
fellow. He was named Jim, and
there wasn't anything the matter with
his mother-no consumption, or any
thing of that kind. She was rather
stout than otherwise, and she was
not pious moreover, she was not
anxious on JIm's account. She said
that if he were to break his neck, it
wouldn't be much loss. She always
spanked him to sleep, and she never
kissed him good night; on the con-
trary, she boxed his ears when she
was ready to leave him.
Once this bad little boy stole the
key of the pantry and slipped in there
and helped himself to some jam, and
filled up the vessel with tar, so that
his mother would never know the diff
ference but all at once terrible
feeling didn't come over him, and
something didn't seem to whisper to
him, "Is it right to disobey my
mother Isn't it sinful to do this I
Where do bad little boys go who
gobble up their good, kind mothers
liam 2" And then he didn't kneel
down all alone and promise never to
be wicked any more, and rise up with
a light, happy heart, and go and tell
his mother all about it, and beg her
forgiveness, and be blessed by her
with tears OF pride and thankfulness
in her eyes. No; this is the wsy
with all other bad boys in the books,
but it happened otherwise with this
Jim, strangely enough. He ate that
jam, and said it was bully, in his sin
full, vulgar way land he put in the
tar, and SAID that was bully also, and
laughed and observed that " the old
woman would get up and snort" when
she found it out; and when she did
find it out, he denied knowing any
thing about it, and she whipped him
severely, and he did the crying him
self. Everything about this boy
was curious-everything turned out
differently with him from the way it
does to the bad Jameses in the books.
Once he climbed up in Farmer
Acorn's apple-tree to steal apples,
and the limb didn't break, and he
didn't fall and break his arm, and get
torn by the farmers great dog, and
then languish on a sick bed for weeks,
and repent and become good. Oh
no, he stole as many apples as he
wanted, and came down all right
and he was all ready for the dog, too,
and knocked him endways with a
rock when he came to tear him. 1t
was very strange-nothing like it
ever happened in those mild little
books with marbled backs, and with
pictures in them OF men with swal-
low-tailed coats and bell crowned
hats, and pantaloons that are short in
the legs, and women with the waists
of their dresses un.'sr sheii arms and
no hoops on. Nothing like it in any
of the Sunday school books.
Once he stole the teachers pen
knife, and when he was afraid it
would be found out, and he would
get whipped, he slipped it into George
Wilson's cap-poor Widow Wilson's
son, the moral boy, the good little
boy of the village, who always obey
ed his mother and never told an un-
truth, and was fond of his lessons
and infatuated with Sunday school.
And when the knife dropped from
the cap, and poor George hung his
head and blushed, as if in conscious
guilt, and the grieved teacher charg-
ed the theft upon him, and was just
in the very act of bringing the switch
down upon his trembling shoulders,
a white haired, improbable justice of
the peace did not suddenly appear in
their midst and strike an attitude and
say, "spare this noble boy-there
stands the covering culprit! / was
passing the school. door at recess,
and, unseen myself, l saw the theft
committed" And then jim didn't
get whaled, and the venerable JUS
tice didn't read the fearful school a
homily, and take George by the hand
and say that such boy deserved to
be exalted, and then tell him to come
and make his home with him, and
sweep out the Office, and make fires,
and.r errands, and chop wood, and
study law, and help his wife TO do
household labors, and have all the
balance OF the time to play, and get
forty cents month and be happy.
No; it would have happened that
way in the books, but it didn't hap |
pan that way to Jim. No meddlingl
old clam of n justice dropped in to
make trouble, and so the model boy
George got thrashed, and Jim was I
glad of it; because, you know, Jim {
hated moral boys. Jim said he was |
=" down on them milk-sops." Such [
was the coarse language of this bad,
neglected boy. In
But the strangest thing that ever
happened to Jim was the time he 1
went boating on Sunday and didn't
get drowned, and that other time i
that he got caught out in the storm i
when he was fishing on Sunday and {
didn't get struck by lightning. Why, s
you might look, and look and look, s
through the Sunday school books G
from now till next Christmas, and
YOU would never come across any
thing like this. Oh! no; you would q
find that all the bad boys who 60
boating on Sunday invariably get
and all the bad boys who S
get caught out in storms, when they s
are fishing on Sunday, infallibly get d
struck by lightning. Boats with bad a
boys in them always upset on Sunday, Q
and it always storms when bad bows 9
90 fishing on the Sabbath. How this :.
Jim ever escaped is a mystery to a
me. 3
This jim bore a charmed life y
that must have been the way OF it. .
could hurt him. He i,
even gave the elephant in the men, I
l..