The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1883-08-01
THE BAD BOY DISCOURSES.
HE UNBosoMs HIMSELF TO THE
GROCERY MAN.


Serious Matters Leaves IA Sign for His
Listener TO Ponder Over.
"What you sitting there for half an
hour for, staring at vacancy?" said |
the 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 you thinking about any
wayP"
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 Ara
rat. and he had passed by with his
excursion and not made landing and
had floated around on the freshet until
all the animals starved, and the ark
had struck a snag and burst hole in
her bottom. / tell you, we can all
congratulate ourselves that Noah hap
pened to blunder on to that high ground.
When 1 think of the narrow escapes
we have had, it is a 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 an other
year you will want to run this world
yourself. 1 don't think you are reform
ing 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 go to college
for, and be a heartless hazer and poor
baseball player. 1 can be bad enough
at home. The more / read the more l
think. l don't believe l can ever be
good enough to go to heaven, anyway,
and 1 guess will go into the newspa-
per business, where they don't have to
be good, and where they have passes
everywhere. Some boys can take
things as they read them, and not think
any for themselves, but am thinker
from Thinkerville, and my imagina-
tion plays the dickens with me. There
is nothing read about in old times but
what 1 compare it with the same lire of
business at the present day. Now,
when think of the fishermen of Cali
lee drawing their seines, l wonder
what they would have done if there
had been a law against hauling seines,
as there is in Wisconsin to-day, and l
can see a constable with warrant for
the arrest of the Galilee fishermen,
taking them to the police station in a
patrol wagon. l know it is wrong to
think like that, but how can help it..
Say, suppose those fishermen had been
| out hauling their seines, and our min
lister should come along with his good
clothes on, his iointed rod, his nickel
plated 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 go to trolling
| for bass? What do you suppose the
lone fishermen of the Bible times
would have thought about the gall of
| the iointed rod fisherman? Do you
suppose they would have thrown stones
! in the water where he was trolling, or
would they have told him there was
! good trolling around point about a
half mile up the shore, where they
knew he wouldn't get bite in week,
the way fellow at Muskego lake lied
to our minister spell ago? l tell
you, boss, it is a sad thing for boy
to have an imagination, and the boy
put his other knee in the sling made
by the clenched fingers of both hands,
and waited for the grocery man to
argue with him.
"I wish you would go away from
here. am afraid of you," said the
grocery man. 81 would give any
thing 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 see if somebody
wouldn't come in and watch the crazy
boy while he went to breakfast.
"Oh, pa and the minister can't
make first payment on me. Pa gets
mad when l 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 L asked him
where the good Elijah (whOm the
boys called 'go up old bald head and
the bears had a free lunch on them
got his plug hat, pa said school was
dismissed and could go. When the
minister was telling me about the good
Elijah going up through the clouds in
a chariot of fire. and asked the min
lister what he thought Elijah would
have thought if he had met our Sun
day-school superintendent coming
down through the clouds on a bicycle,
he put his hand on my head and said
my liver was all wrong. Now, l will
leave it to you if there was anything
wrong about that Say, do you know
| ,rhnt / think is the most haanti fnl