The Arkansaw traveler., 1883-07-21
THE BAD BOY.
peck's Sun. '

Peck's sunI
 "Here, condemn you. you vii, pay for that Cat" said the grocery man 10 the bad boy, as he came in the store all broke up, the morning after the Fourth of July.
 "What cat :" said the boy, as he leaned against the zinc ice box to cool his back, which had been having trouble with bunch of6re-crackers in his pistol pocket. We haven't ordered any cat from here. Who ordered any cat sent to our house ! We get our sausage at the market" and the boy rubbed some cold cream on his nose and eyebrows, where the skin was of.
 "Yes, that is all right enough" said the grocery man, but somebody who knew where that Cat slept, in the box of sawdust back of the stove, filled it full of ! fire-erackers Wednesday afternoon, when was out to see the proces ,ion, and never notified the cat, and touched them off, and the cat went through the roof of the shed, and she hasn't got hair enough left on her to put in the tea. Now, you didn't show up all the forenoon, and went and asked your ma where you was. and she said you had been setting up tour nights straight along with sick boy in the Third ward, and you was sleeping all the forenoon the Fourth of July. If that IS so, that lets you out on the cat, but it don't stand to reason. Own up, now, was you asleep all the forenoon, the Fourth, while other boys were celebrating, or did you scorch my cal" and the grocery man looked at the boy as though he would believe every word he said, if he was bad.
 Well" said the bad boy, as he yawned as though he had been up all night, ..I an innocent of setting up with your Cat, but plead guilty to setting mp with i Duffy. You see, l am bad, and it don't make any difference where am, and Duffy ,humped me once, when we were 1 playing marbles, and said would get even with him some time. His ma washes for us, and when she told me her boy was sick, with fever, and had nobody | to stay with him while she was away. 1 thought i, would be good way to get even with Duffy when he was weak, and l went down there to his shanty and gave him his medicine, and read 10 him all day, and he cried, cause he knew ought to have mauled him, and that night sat up with him while his ma did the ironing. and Duffy was so glad that I went down every day, and stayed there every night, and fired medicine down him, and let hrs ma sleep, and Duffy has got mashed on me, and he says will be an angel when l die. Last night makes i've nights l have sat up with him, and he has got so he can eat beef tea and crackers. My girl went back on me cause she said was sitting up with some other girl. She said that Duffy story was too thin, but Duffys ma was washing at my girls house and she proved what said, and was all right az in. slep, all the forenoon the Fourth, and then stayed with Duffy till four o'clock, and got furlough and took my girl to the Soldiers Horne. had rather set up with Duffy though
 70, get out You cant make me be- lieve you had rather stay in sick room and set up with boy. than to take a girl to the Fourth of July" said the grocery man, as he took a brush and wiped the saw dus, of some bottles of pepper sauce that he was taking out of q ooN You didn't have any trouble with the girl did you :'
 .No o-tiVk Nki iiSI, SAiu lilc DOS, as he looked in the little round zinc mirror 10 see If his eyebrows were beginning to grow. But her pa Is so unreasonable l think d man ought to know better than to kick i boy nigh, where he has had a pack of hre-orac kers explode Tn his pocket. You sec when l brought the girl back home. she was wreck. Don't you never take slrl to the Fourth ot July. Take the advice of Il boy who has had eNperl- ence. We hadn't more than got to the soldiers Home grounds before some boys who were playing tas grabbed hold otmy girls crushed-stfawber polonaisc and tipped il oil. That made her mad. and she wanted me to take otiense d, Il. and tried to reason with the boys and , they both jumped on me, and saw the only way to get out of il honorably. was to get out real spry, and got. Then we sal down under tree, to eat lunch, and my girl swallowed pickle the wrong way. and pounded her on the back. the way ma does me when l choke, and she yelled. and policeman grabbed me and shook me, and asked me what l was hurting that poor girl for, and told me that if did 1t again he would arrest me-
 
 somebody fired Roman candle into my girls hat, and SC, i, on fire, and grabbed the hat and stamped on il, and spoiled her hair that her ma bought her. By gosh. thought that her hair was curley. but when the wig was of. her own hair was as straight as could be. Bu, she was purty, all the same. We got unde, another tree, to get away from the smell of burnt hair, and boy set of a nigger 1 chaser, and it ran right a, my girls feet. and burned her stockings, and a woman put the fire out for her. while looked for the boy that fired the nisger chaser. but didn't want to find him. She was pretty near wreck by that time. though she had all her dress left excep, the polo naise, and we went and sat under a tree in quie, place, and pu, my arm around her and told her never to mind the accidents, cause 1t would be dark when we got home and just then . spark dropped down through the tree and fell : sv>v A.