Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1870-05-06
4 The Story Of the Coed Little Boy Who
vA Did Not Prosper.
BV MARK TWAIN.

ONCE there was good little boy by the
name of Jacob Blivens. He always
obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd
and unreasonable their demands were
and he always learned his book, and
never was late at Sabbath school, He
would not play hockey, even when his
sober judgment told him it was the most
profitable thing he could do. None of the
other boys could ever make that boy out
he acted so strangely. He wouldn't lie
no matter how convenient it was. He
just said it was wrong to lie, and that was
sufficient for him. And he was so honest
that he was simply ridiculous. The curl
GUS ways that Jacob had surpassed every
thing. He wouldn't play marbles on Sun
day, he wouldn't rob birds nests, he
wouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grind-
ers' monkeys; he didn't seem to take any
interest in any kind of rational amuse-
ment. SO the other boys used to try to
reason it out and come to an understand
ing of him, but they couldn't arrive at any
satisfactory conclusion as L said before,
they could only figure out a sort of vague
idea that he was "afflicted" and so they
took him under their protection, and
never allowed any harm to come to him.
This good little boy read all the Sunday
school books; they were his greatest de-
He believed in the good little boys they
y put in the Sunday school books; he had
every confidence in them. He longed to
come across one of them alive, once; but
he never did. They all died before his
Z time, may be. Whenever he read about a
particularly good one, he turned over
quickly to the end to see what became of
him, because he wanted to travel thou
sands of miles and gaze on him; but 1t
wasn't any use; that good little boy al
ways died in the last chapter, and there
was picture of the funeral, with all his
relations and the Sunday school children
standing around the grave in pantaloons
that were too short, and bonnets thatwere
, too large, and everybody crying into
= -handkerchiefs that had as much as yard
and half of stuff in them He was al
ways headed off in this way. He never
Z could see one Of those good little boys, on
account of his always dying in the last
Chapter q W 81 ~
Jacob had noble ambition to be put in
a Sunday school book. He wanted to be
put in, with pictures representing
e him gloriously declining to lie to his
mother, and she weeping for Joy about
it land pictures representing him standing
81 on the door step giving penny to poor
beggar-woman with six children, and tel
ling her to spend it freely, but not to be
sextrayagant, because extravagance is a
sin; and pictures of him magnanimously
refusing to tell on the bad boy who always
lay in wait for him around the corner, as
he came from school, and welted him over
the head with lath, and then chased him
home, saying, Hi hip' as he proceeded
That was the ambition of young Jacob
Blivens. He wished to be put in Sunday
school book. 1t made him feel little
q uncomfortable sometimes when he re-
f1ected that the good little boys always
died. He loved to live, you know, and
this was the most unpleasant feature about
r being a Sunday school book boy. He
y knew it was not healthy to be good
~ He knew it was more fatal than consump-
ton to be so supernaturally good as the
boys in the books were; he knew that
q none of them had ever been able to stand
ID it long, and it panied him to think that if
- they put him in book he wouldn't ever
2 seeit, or even if they did get the book
out before he died, 1t wouldn't be popu-
lar without any picture of his funeral in
the back part of it. 1t couldn't be much
2 soffa Sunday school book that couldn't tell
about the advice he gave to the commu-
nifty when he was dying. So, at last, of
course, he had to make up his mind to do
the best he could under the circumstances
eI---tto live right, and hang on as long as he
could, and have his dying speech all ready
when his time came.
300 But somehow, nothing ever went right
. with this good, little boy; nothing ever
turned out with him the way it turned
out with the good little boys in the books.
They always had a good time, and the
9 bad boys had the broken legs but in his
:. case there was screw loose somewhere,
and it all happened lust the other way.
8 When he found Jim Blake stealing ap
pies, and went under the tree to read to
him about the bad little boy who fell out
g efa neighbours apple tree, and broke his
arm, Jim fell out of the tree too, but he
fell on him and broke has arm, and Jim
> wasn't hurt at all Jacob couldn't under
=, stand that. There wasn't anything in the
books like it.
d3i!And once, when some bad boys pushed
a blind man over in the mud, and Jacob
ran to help him up and receive his bless
ing, the blind man did not give him any
blessing at all, but whacked him over the
head with his stick and said he would
.9liketo catch him showing hina again and
then pretending TO help him up. This
was not in accordance with any of the
books. Jacob looked them all over to
tsee. tel il4akA s1 4+AA
lone thing that Jacob wanted to do was to