Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-05-28

teacher charged the theft to him, and
was just in the act of bringing the switch
down on his trembling shoulders, a
white-haired improbable justice of the
peace didn't suddenly appear in their
midst and strike an attitude and say
"Spare this noble boy, there stands the
covering culprit! I was passing the
schooi-room door at recess, unseen my
self, saw the theft"
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 de-
served to be exalted, and then tell him
to come and make his home with him,
aud sweep out the office, and make fires,
and run errands, chop wood, study law,
and help his wife to do household Ia
bors, and have all the balance of the
time to play. and get forty cents a
month, and be happy. No, it would
have happened that way in the books,
but it didn't happen that way to Jim.
No meddling old clam of a justice drop
ped in to make trouble, and so the
model boy George got threshed, and Jim
was glad of it. Because, you know,
Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he
was down on milk-sops. Such was the
language of this bad neglected boy.
But the strangest thing that ever hap
pened to Jim was when he went boating
on Sunday and didn't get drowned, and
that other time when he got caught out
in a storm when he was fishing on Sun
day, and didn't get struck by lightning.
Why, youmight look through the Sun.
day school books from now till next
Christmas and you would never come
across anythinglike this. Oh, no---that
all the bad boys who go boating on Sun
day invariably get drowned, and all the
bad boys who get caught out in storms,
when they are fishing on Sunday, infal-
libly get struck by lightning. Boats
with bad boys in them always get upset
on Sunday, and it always storms when
bad boys go off fishing on the Sabbath.
How Jim ever escaped this is mystery
to me.
Jim bore charmed life-that must
have been the way of it. Nothing could
hurt him. He even gave the elephant
in the menagerie plug of tobacco, and
the elephant didn't knock the top of his
head off with his trunk. He browsed
around the cupboard after essence of
peppermint, and didn't make mistake
and drink aquafortis.
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 temple with his
fist when he was angry and she didn't
linger in pain through long summer days
and with sweet words of forgiveness
upon her lips that redoubled the anguish
of his breaking heart. No-she got
over it.
He ran off and went to sea at last, and
did not come back and find himself sad,
alone in the quiet churchyard, and the
vine-embowered home of boyhood tum-
bled down and gone to decay. All mo-
he came home as drunk as a piper, and
got into the station-house the first thing.
And he grew up and married. and
raised large family, and Drained them
all with an axe one night, and got
wealthy by all manner of cheating and
rascality, and now he is the infernalist
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.