Daily Republican. [volume] ([Wilmington, Del.]) 1874-1890, 1883-07-27
THE BA ID HOY DIsCOURsI:s.
He UnDOsOms GIimsel TO the Gro.
cory man.

hour for, staring at vacancy said the
grocery man to the bad hoy, ~ he SAT
Oh a stool by the stove one OF these
fOggy mornings, when everybody feels
like quarreling, with his fingers
clasped around his knee, looking a-
though he did not know enough to last
him to bed. :" What you thinking
about anyway %
81 was wondering where you would
have been to-day if Noah had run his
ark into such fog as this, and there
had been no fog on Mount Ararat,
and he had passed by with his excnr-
sion and MT made landing, and had
tioated around ON the treshet until all
the animals st}rved. and the ark had
struck a sIag and burst a hole in her
bo tom. | tell you, We can all congra1u
late ourselves that Noah Happened to
b'under on to that lish ground. When
| ihink OF the harrow escapes we have
had, il Is a wonder 10 me that we have
got along as well as wehave. "
"Well, when did you get out OF the
asylum" said the grocery man, win
had been standing back with open
mouth and looking at tho boy do though
he WAS crazy. What you want is to
il We your head soaked. You are get
ting SO you reach out too far with that
small mind of yonrs. In about another
year you will want to run this world
yourself. don't think you are reform.
ing very much. 1t is wicked for a By
OF your size 10 argue about snch things.
Your folks better send you to college.
"What do | want to 90 to co lese
for, and be a heartless hazcr and a poor
base ball player. can be had enough
at home. The more read the more |
think. | don believe can Yer ht
good enough to 60 to leavr, anyway,
and guess will 60 into the newspa-
per business, where they dent have to
b. good, and where they have passes
everywhere. Some boys can take
things as they read them, land not thank
any for themselves, but ! AIN thinker
fr, Il TIL nkerville, and my imagination
plays the dickens with me. There is
nothing l read about in old times but
what | compare il with the same line OF
business at the present day."
Now, when | think of the fisher
men of Galilee drawing their seints, |
wonder what they would have done if
there had been law against lauing
seines, us there is in Wisconsin to-day,
and can see a constable with a war
rant for the arrest of the Ga,ilee Usher
men, aking them to the police static
in patrol wagon. | know it is wrong
to think like hat, but how can | help
it? Say, suppose those fishermen. had
been out hauling their seines, and our
should come along with his
good clothes on, his jointed rod, his
reel, and his silk fish line,
and his patent fish hook, and put frog
on the hook and cast his line near the
Galilee fisherman and 60 10 trolling for
bass?
What do you suppose the lone fisher
men OF tn Bible times would have
thought about the gail of the jointea
rod fisherman Do you suppose they
would have thrown stones in the water
where he was trolling, or would they
have told him there Nas good trolling
around point about Il half a mile up
the shore, where they knew he
wouldn't get Il bite in a week, the way
a fellow at Muskego lake lied to oul
spell ago? | tell you, boss,
it is a sad thing for a boy to have an
imagination, and the boy pat his
other knee in the sling made by the
clenched fingers of both hands, and
waited for the grocery man TO
argue with him.
81 wish you would 60 away from
here. ! am afraid of you, 80 said the
grocery man. | would give anything
if your pa or the minister would come
in and have talk with you. Your
mind is wandering" and the grocery
man went to the door and looked up
and down to Set if somebody wouldn t
come in and watch the crazy boy while
he went to breakfast.
"Oh, pa and the minister can't make
a first payment on me. Pa gets mad
when | ask questions, and the minister
thinks am past redemption. Pa said
yesterday that badness was caused in
every case by mems wearing plug hats,
and when ! asked him where the good
Elijah (whom the boys called 90 mp
old bald head, and the beaIs had Il free
lunch on them) got his plug hat, pa
said school was dismissed anu could
20.
When the minister was telling me
about the good Elijah going up through
the clouds in a chariot ut fire, and !
asked the minister What he thought
Elijah would have thought if he had
met our Sulday-school Superintendent
coming down through the clouds on a
bicycle, he put his hand on my head
md said my liver was all wrong. Now,
| will leave it to you if there was any
thing wrong about that. Say, do you
know what think is The most beanli-
;ul thing in the Bible?
No, ! don't" said the grocery man,
- and if you want to tell it will listen
Just five minutes, and then | am going
10 shut up the store and 90 to breakfast.
You make me tired"
"Well, | think the finest Thing is that
story about the prodigal sou, where the
boy took all the money he could scrhpe
M and went ont West to paint the
towns red. He spent his money in
riotous living, and saw everything that
was going on, and got full Of benzine,
and struck all the gangs of loughs, and
his stomach went back on him, aad he
had malaria, and finally he got to be a
cowboy, herding hogs, and had to eat
ilusks that the hogs didn't want, and
got pretty low down.
"Then he thought it was a pretty
good scheme to be getting around home,
where they had three meals II day and
spring mattresses. and he started home,
beating his way on the trains, and he
lidn't know whether the old man
would receive him with open arms or
pointed boots, but the old man came
Town to the depot to meet him, and
right there before the passengers and
he conductor and brakeman, he WASH t
ashamed of the boy, though he was
ragged, and looked us though he had
been on the war path, and the old man
Tell ON his neck and wept, and took him
home in hack and had veal pot.pie
for dinner. That's what ! call sense.
a good many men nowadays would
have put the police ON tho tramp and
had him ordered ouC Of town. What,
you going to CLOSE up the store? Well,
vii see you later. ! want to talk TO
81 ~ Ia.