The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1883-06-16
'rHE BAD BOY.
Peek 8 Sun.l

"NNhat is that / hear about your pa
fighting duel with the minister in your
ck-yarl, and wounding him in the leg.
and then trying to drown him in the
cistern?' said the grocery man to the
bad boy the other morning. ''One Of
your new neighbors was here this morn
ing, and told me there was murder in the
air at your house last night, and they
were going to have the police pull your
place as disorderly house. think you
were at the bottom of the whole busi-
ness !"
"Oh, its all darn lie, and those
neishbors will find they had better keep
still about us, or We will lie about them
little. You see, since pa got that
blacking on his face he don't go out any,
and TO make it pleasant for him ma in
vited few friends to spend the evening.
Ma invited the minister among the rest,
and after supper the men went up into
pas library, to talk. Oh, you think |
am bad, dent you but of the nine men
at our house last night, am an angel
compared with what they were when
they were boys. | got in the bathroom,
to untangle my 6sh-line, and it is next to
pas room, and could hear everything
they said, but | went away cause /
thought the conversation would hurt my
morals. They would all steal when they
were boys, but darned if lever stole. Pa
has stole over a hundred wagon-loads OF
watermelons, one deacon used to rob
orchards, another one shot tame ducks
belonging to a farmer, and another tipped
over grindstones in front of the village
store at night, and broke them and run,
and another used to steal eggs, and go
out in the woods and boil them, and the
minister was the worst of the lot, cause
he took seine, with some other boys,
and went to stream where neighbor
was raising brook trout, and cleaned the
stream out, and to ward off suspicion he
went to the man the next day and paid
him dollar to let him fish in the stream,
and then kicked because there were no
trout, and the owner found the trout
were stolen and laid it to some Ducth
boys. | wondered when those men were
telling their experience, if they ever
thought of it now when they were
preaching, and praying and taking up
collections. should think they would
not say a boy was going straight to hell
right off cause he was little wild now,
when he has such an example. Well,
lately somebody has been burgling oul
chicken.coop, and pa loaded an old mus
ket with rock salt, and said he would
fill the fellow full of salt if he caught
him, and while they were talking up
stairs ma heard rooster squawk, ano
she went to the stairway and told pi
there was somebody in the henhouse
Pa jumped up and told the visitors tt
follow him and they would see mar
running down the alley full of salt. anC
he rushed out with his gun, and th'
crowd followed him. Pa is shorter THAI
the rest, and he passed under the frs
wire clothes-line all right, and was goin|
for the henhouse on jump, when hi
neck caught the second wire clothes.l line
just as the minister and two of tn
deacons caught their necks under tn
other wire. You know how wir
hitting a man under the throat, will Sc
man back, head over appetite. Well
sir, was looking ont of the back win
dow, and l wouldn't be positive but
think they all turned double back somer
saults, and struck on their ears. Any
way, pa did, and the gun must have bee
cooked, or it struck the hammer on
stone, for it went off, and it was pointe
toward the house, and three of the Wis
itors got salted. The minister was hi
the worst, one piece OF salt taking him !
the hind leg, and the other in the back
and he yelled as though it was dynamite
] suppose when You shoot man wit
salt it smarts, like when you get corne
beef brine on your chapped hands OF
cold morning. They all yelled, and ?
seemed to have been knocked silly, som
way, for be pranced around and SCENE
10 think he had killed them. He swol