The Osceola times., 1883-07-21
THE BAD BOY.
Getting His sunday-school learning All
Mixed up with Modern Things.

Mixed up with Modern Things.
Peoks sun.
"What do want to 90 to college for
and be heartless hazcr and poor base
ball player | can be bad enough at
home. The more ] read the more !
think. | don't believe ! can ever be
good enough to 90 to heaven, anyway,
and guess | will 90 into the newspaper
business, where they don't have to be
good, and where they have passes every
where. Do you know, | think when l
was built they left out a cog-wheel or
something in my head? | can't think
like some boys. get to thinking about
Adam and Eve in the garden Of Eden,
and of the dude with the cloven hooi
that fiirted with Eve, and treated her
and Adam to the dried apples, and |
can't think of them as other boys do,
with fig-leaf polonaise and tig-ieaf
vests. imagine them dressed up in
the latest style. | know it is wrong, but
that is what a poor boy has to suffer who
has an imagination, and where did get
the imagination? This confounded i'm
acination of mine shows me Adam with
plug hat on, Just like our minister
wears, and a stand up collar, and tight
pants, and peaked-toed shoes; and Eve
is pictured to me with a crushed angle
worm dress, and brown striped stockings
and newspapers TO make her dress set
out, and hat with dandelions on, and a
red parasol and lace handkerchief
which she puts to her lips and winks
with her left eye to the mashe
who is standing by the corner of the
house, In an attitude, while the tail with
the dark on the end is wound around
the rain-water barrel So Eve won't see
il and get scared. Say, don't you think
| it is better for boy to think of our first
parents with clothes on, than to think
of them almost naked, exposed to the
inclemency of the weather, with moth
ing but fig-leaves pinned on? | want to
do right as near as | can, but ] had rath-
er think of them dressed like our folks
are to day, than to think Of them in a
cyclone with leaves for wearing apparel.
Saw, it is wrong to fight, but don't you
think if Adam had put on pair of box
ing gloves, when he found the devil was
getting too fresh about the place, and
Knocked him out in a couple of rounds
and pasted him in the nose and fired
| Of hn vi ut
would have been big thing for the
world? Now, honest?"
Il wish you would go away from here
| am afraid of you" said the grocery
man. IL would give anything if youI
pa or the minister would come and have
a talk with YOU. Your mind is wander
ing" and the grocery man went to the
door and looked up and down the street
to see if somebody wouldn't come in and
watch the crazy boy while he went tc
breakfast
80, pa and the minister can't make a
first payment on me. Pa gets mad wher
| ask questions, and the minister thinks
| am past redemption. Pa said yester
day that badness was caused, in every
case, by men wearing plug hats, and
when ] asked where the good Elijah
(whom the boys called go up old bale
| head and the bears had free lunch or
him get his plug hat, pa said school wa
dismissed and | could go. When tn,
minister was telling me about the gooc
Elijah going up in the clouds in a char
lot of fire, and | asked the minister
what he thought Elijah would hav,
thought if he had met our Sunday
superintendent coming through tn,
clouds on bicycle, he put his hand OF
my head and said my liver was al
wrong. Now, will leave it to you j
there was anything wrong about that
Saw, do YOU know what | think is tn,
most beautiful thing in the bible ?'
"No, | don't" said the grocery man
"and if you want to tell it | will lister
Just five minutes, and then | am going t
shut up the store and 90 to breakfast
You make me tired"
"Well, | think the finest thing is tha
story about the prodigal son, where th'
boy took all the money he could scrap'
up and went out west to paint houses
He spent his money in riotous living
and saw everything that was going on
and got full of benzine, and struck al
the gangs of toughs, both male and fe
male, and his stomach went back on hin
and he had malaria, and finally he go
to be a cowboy, herding hogs, and h,
had to eat husks that the hogs didn'
want, and got pretty low down. Thei
he thought it was pretty good to be get
ing around home, where they had thre'
meals day, and spring mattresses, an'
he started home, beating his way on TIN
trains, and he didn't know whether thu
old man would receive him with opel
arms or pointed boots, but the old maj
came down to the depot to meet him
and right there before the passenger
and the conductor and brakemen, h.
wasn't ashamed of his boy, though h
was ragged and looked as though he ha'
been on the war path, and the old mai
fell on his neck and wept, and took hin
in hack and had veal pot-pie 70
dinner. That's what | call sense.
good many men nowadays would hav'
put the p lice on the tramp and had hin
ordered out of town. What, you goin
to close up the store? Well, ! will Sc
YOU later. | want to talk with yo
about something that is weighing on m
mind" and the boy got out Just in tim
to save his coat tail from being caugh
in the door, and when the grocery ma
came back from breakfast he found
sign in, "This store is closed until fui
ther notice.-SHERIFF."
I
Woman shoots an Alligator.