The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1879-06-20
THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE
Roy WHO DID NOT PROSPER.
BY MARK TWAIN.

and never was late Tor SaOOatl SCHOOL.
Ho 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 strange
ly. He wouldn't lie, no matter how
convenient it was. He just said it was
wrong to lie, and that was sufnclent
for him. And he was so honest that
he was ridiculous. The curious ways
that Jacob had surpassed everything.
He wouldn't play marbles ON Sunday,
he wouldn't rob birds nests, he wouldn't
give hot pennies to organ grinders
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 under
standing of him, but they couldn't ar
rive at any satisfactory conclusion.
out 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.
The good little boy read all the Sun
day school books; they were his great
est 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, maybe.
Whenever he read about q particular
ly good one he turned over quickly to
the end to see what became of him,
because he wanted to travel thousands
of miles and gaze ON him; but it wasn't
any use; that good little boy always
died in the last chapter, and there was
q picture of the funeral, with all his
relations and the Sunday school chill
dren standing around the grave in
pantaloons that were too short, and
bonnets that were too large, and every
body crying into handkerchiefs that
had as much as a yard and q half of
stuff in them. He was always headed
off in this way. He never could see
ono of those good little boys on ac-
count of his always dying in the last
chapter.
Jacob had a noble ambition to be
put in Sunday school book. He
wanted to be put in, with pictures rep
resenting him gloriously declining to
lie to his mother, and her weeping for
Joy about it; and pictures representing
him standing on the doorstep giving a
penny to n poor beggar woman with
two children, and telling her to spend
it freely, but not to be extravaganza,
because extravaganza is n sin; and pic
lures 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 wclted
him over the head with lath, and
hill" as he proceeded. That was the
ambition of young Jacob BIivcns. He
wished to BIO put in a Sunday school
book. It made him feel little I'M
comfortable sometimes when he re-
Elected that the good little boy always
died. He loved to live, you know, and
this was tho most unpleasant feature
about being a Sunday school book boy.
He knew it was not healthy to be good. |
He knew it was more fatal than con-
sumption to be SO systematically good |
as tho boys in tho 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 a |
book he wouldn't ever. see it, or even
If they did got the book out before he |
died it wouldn't be popular without |
any pictures Of his funeral in the back |
part of it. 1t couldn't be much of "a
Sunday school book that couldn't tell
about the advice he gave to the COM
munity when he was dying. So ut
last, OF course, he had to make up his
mind to do tho best he could under
tho circumstances-to live right, and
hang on as long as he could, and have
his dying speech all ready when his
timo came.
But somehow nothing ever went
right with this good little boy; nothing
over turned out with him the wav Il
turned out with the good little bows In
the books. They always had a good
time, and the bad boys had the broken
legs; but in this case there was a screw
loose somewhere, and it all happened
just the other way. When he found
Jim Blake stealing apples, and went
under the tree to read to him about the
bad little boy who fell out of q neigh
boris apple tree and broke his arm,
Jim fell out of the tree too, but he fell
on him, and broke his arm, aud Jim
wasn't hurt at all. Jacob couldn't I'M
derstand that. There wasn't anything
in the books like it.
And once, when some bad bows
pushed a blind man over in the mud. |
and Jocob ran to help him up and re.
ceive his blessing, tho blind man did
not give him any blessing at all, but
whacked him over the head with his
stick md SaiA l,a