The Bozeman weekly chronicle. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1883-1889, 1883-06-27
The BAD BOY.
Peck's Sun.

hOuf IOf, 6tarlng at vacancy salu tne
grocery man to the bad boy, as he sat on
stool by the stove one Of these foggy
mornings, when everybody feels like
quarreling, with his fingers clasped
around his knee, looking as though he
did not know enough to last him to
bed. "What are you thinking about any
way?"
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-horn on Mount Ararat, and
he had passed by with his excursion and
not made landing, and had Heated
around on the freshet until all the ami
mails starved, and the ark had struck a
snag and burst a hole in her bottom. l
tell you, we can all congratulate ourselves
that Noah happened to blunder on to
that high ground. If that ark had been
lost, either by being foundefed, or being
blowed up by Fenians cause Noah was
an Englishman, 1t would have been cold
work trying to populate this world. In
that case another Adam and Eve would
have to be made ont of dirt and water,
and they might have gone wrong again,
and failed to raise family, and
where would we have been. 1 tell
YOU. when I think of the narrow es-
capes we have had, it is wonder to me
that we have got along as well as we
have"
"Well, when did you get out of the
asylum" said the grocery man, who had
been standing back with open mouth
looking at the boy as though he was
crazy. "What you want is to have your
head soaked. You are getting SO you
reach out too far with that small mind Of
yours. In about another year you will
want to run this world yourself. don't
think you are reforming very much. 1t
is wicked for boy of your size to argue
about such things. Your folks better
send you to college,"
"What do 1 want to so to college for,
and be heartless hazer, and poor base
ball player. I can be bad enough at
home. The more I read, the more l
think. don't believe l can ever be good
enough to 60 to heaven, anyway, and l
guess l will 60 into the newspaper busi-
ness, where they don't have to be good,
and where they have passes everywhere.
Do you know,I think when 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 hoof that flirted with
Eve, and treated her and Adam to the
dried apples, and l can't think Of them
as some boys do, with fly leaf polon-
aise, and fly leaf vests. imagine them
dressed up in the latest style. 1 know it
is wrong, but that is what poor boy has
to suffer who has an imagination, and
where did get the imagination? This
confounded imagination of mine shows
me Adam with plug hat on, just like
our minister wears, and stand up collar
and tight pants, and peaked-toed shoes,
and Eve is pictured to me with a crush
ed-angleworm-colored dress, and brown
striped stockings, and newspapers in her
dress to make it set out, and hat with
dandelions on, and red parasol, and a
lace handkerchief, which she puts to her
lips and winks with her left eye to the
masher who is standing by the corner Of
the house, in an attitude, while the tail
with the darton the end is wound around
the rain water barrel, SO Eve won't see it
and get scared. Say, don't you think it
is better for a boy to think of our first
parents with clothes on, than to think of
them almost naked, exposed to the in
clemency of the weather, with nothing
but fig leaves pinned on? l want to do
right, as near as can, but had rather
think of them dressed like our folks are
to-day, than to think of them in cy-
clone with leaves for wearing apparel.
Say, 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 couple of rounds,
and pasted him in the nose, and fired
him out of the summer garden, that it
would have been a big thing. for this
world. Now, honest?" 81,
"Lookahere," said the grocery man,
who had been looking at the boy in dis
may, "You better go right home, and let
your ma fix up some warm drink for you,
and put you to bed. You are all wrong
in the head, and if you are not attended
to you will have brain fever. tell you,
boy, you are in danger. Come, will go
home with you."
"Say, do you know what l think is
the most beautiful thing in the Bible?"
"No, 1 DON'T" said the grocery man,
"and if you want to tell it will listen
just five minutes, and then am going to
shut up the store and go to breakfast.
You make me tired"
"Well, think the finest thing is that
story about the prodigal son, where the
bov took all the money he could scrape
up and went out west to paint the towns
rcd. He spent his money in riotous liv-
ing, and saw everything that was going
on, and got full of benzine, and struck all
the gangs of toughs, both male and fe-
male, and his stomach went back on him
and he had malaria, and finally he got to
be cowboy, herding hogs, and had to
eat husks that the hogs didn't want, and
got pretty low down. Then he thought
it was pretty good scheme to be get
ting around home, where they had three
meals a day, and spring mattresses, and
he started home, beating his way on the
trains, and he didn't know whether the
old man would receive him with open
arms or pointed boots, but the old man
came down to the depot to meet him,
and right there before the passengers,
and the conductor and brakemen, he
wasn't ashamed of his boy, though he
had been on the war path, and the old
man fell on his neck and wept, and took
him home in hack and had veal pot