The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1870-06-09
GALES, SkrteRes, 5nttOotes, 1T,
THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY
WHO DID NOT PROSPER.
BY MARK TWAIN.

Once there was good little boy by the
name of Jacob BIivens. 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 profit
able thing he could do. None of the
other boys couldNEer make that boy out,
he acted so strangely. He wouldn't lie,
no matter how convenient it was. He
just said it was wrong 10 lie, and that
was sufficient for him. And he was so
honest that he was simply ridiculous -
The curious ways that Jacob had sur
passed everything. He wouldn't play
marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds
nests, he wouldn't give hot pennies to or
gan grinders monkeys; he didn't seem to
take any interest in any kind of rational
amusement. So the other boys used TO
try to reason it out and come 10 an under
standing of him, but they couldn't arrive
at any satisfactory conclusion as | said
before, they could only figure out a sort
of vague idea that he was "af1lcted" and
so they took him under their protection,
and never allowed any harm to come to
him.
This good little boy read all the Sun
day school books; they were his greatest
delight. This was the whole secret of it,
He believed in the good little boys they
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
time, may be. Whenever he read about
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 it
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 that
were too large, and everybody crying into
handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard
and a half of stuff in them. He was all
ways headed off in this way. He never
could see one of those good little boys, on
account of his always dying in the last
chapter.
Jacob had noble ambition TO be put
in Sunday school book. He wanted to
be put in, with pictures representing him
gloriously declining to lie to his mother,
and she weeping for joy about it and
pictnres representing him standing on the
door step giving a penny TO poor beggar
woman with six children, and telling her
to spend it freely, but not to be extrava-
giant, because extravaganza is 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 latb, and chaed him
home, saying, "Hi hi !" as he proceed.
ed. That was the ambition of young
Jacob Blivens. He wished to be put In
Sunday school book. 1t made him feel
reflected that the good little boys always
died. He loved to live, you know, and
| this was the most unpleasant feature about
being Sunday school book boy. He
knew it was not healthy TO be good. He
knew it was more fatal than consumption
to be so supernaturally good as the boys
in the books were he knew that none of
them had ever been able to stand it long,
and it panied him to think that if they
put him in book he wouldn't ever see il
or even if they did get the book out before
he died it wouldn't be popular without any
picture of his fu neral in the back part o
it, 1t couldn't be much of a Sunday
school book that couldn't tell about the
advice he gave to the community 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-to live