The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-06-10
WHEELING. WEST VA, MONDAY MORNING. JUNE 10, 1861

tice ofthe peace did not suddenly an
pear in their midst and strike an afti-
tude and say, "spare this noble boyL
there stands the covering culpritI I
was passing the school door at recess.
and, unseen, myself, 1 saw the then
committed. And then Jim didn't get
whaled, and the venerable justice didn't
read the fearful school homily, and
take George by the hand and say such
a 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 run errands, and chop
wood, and study law, and help his wife
to do household labors, and have all
the balance ofthe time to play, and get
forty cents q month, and be happy.
Mo- 1t would have happened that way
in the books, but it didn't happen that
way to Jim. No meddling old clam of
a justics dropped in to make trouble,
and so the model boy George got thresh-
ed, and Jim was glad Of II: because.
you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim
said he was "down on them milksops." !"
Such was the coarse language of this
bad, neglected boy.
But thestrangest thingthat ever hap
pened to Jim was when he went boat
ing on Sunday and didn't get drowned,
and that other time that he got caught
out in the storm when he was fishing
on Sunday and didn't get struck by
lightning. Why, you might look, and
look and look through the Sunday
school books from now till next Christ
mas, and you would never come across
anything like this. Obi no; you would
find that all the bad boys who 90 boat
ing on Sunday invariably get drowned;
and all of the bad boys who get caught
out in storms, whenthey are fishing on
Sunday, infallibly get struck by light
ming. Boats with bad boys in them al
ways upset on Sunday, ana 1t always
storms when bad boys 60 fishing on
capped is a mystery to me.
This Jim bore charmed life-that
must have been the way of it. Nothing
could hurt him. He even gave the ele-
phant in the menagerie plug OF tobac-
co, and the elephant didn't knock the
top ofhis head of with his trunk. He
browsed around the cupboard after es-
sence of peppermint and didn't make
mistake and drink aqua fortis. He stole
his fathers gun and went hunting on
the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or
four of his fingers off.
He struck his little sister on the tenn
pie with his fist when he was angry,
and she didn't linger in pain through
long summer days, and die with sweet
words of forgiveness upon her lips that
redoubled the anguish of his breaking
heart. No; she got over it. he ran of
and went to sea at last, and didn'tcome
back and find himself sad and aloneIin
the world, his loved ones sleeping in
the church-yard, and the vine-embow-
cred home of his boyhood tumbled
down and gone to decay. All f! no; he
came home drunk as piper, and got
into the station-house the FIRST thing.
And he grew up and married, and
raised large family, and Drained them
with an axe one night, and got wealthy
by all manner of cheating and rascali-
ty, and now he is the internalist wicked
scoundrel in his native village, and is
universally respected, and belongs TO
the Legislature.
So you see there never was a bad
James in the Sunday School books that
had such streak OF luck as this sinful
James with the charmed life.